ROB COCHRANE
Merino and Halfbred wool clips representing Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago growers continued to feature at wool auctions held in Christchurch during September and October. Coarse wool growers were also very well represented mainly by hogget wools but also via some very stylish pre-lamb shorn ewe clips.
The respected adage, “there is no substitute for quality”, rang true as wool exporters showed a keenness to bid strongly for super style wools across the breed spectrum, whilst poorer types were discounted accordingly.
As crossbred shorn hogget types began to dominate coarse wool offerings during October, prices fluctuated somewhat with only very good wools gaining maximum attention. Vegetable matter contamination (vm), colour, and staple length, obviously remained key in determining price, but with many wools coming from wetter areas and showing light mud on the staple tips, yields were in some cases affected negatively which had a bearing on buyer demand due to an expectation that actual scoured yields would also be lower than desired.
Full length fleece of super style (very good colour, sound tensile strength and no vm), was embraced by the trade with prices around the 400 cents per clean kilogram mark. Crossbred second-shear struggled to maintain their earlier levels with shorter second-shear most affected.
A very good selection of Halfbred and Corriedale wools were catalogued during October with many measuring finer than about 28 microns improving considerably on 13th October auction, compared to earlier. A number of lines which had been passed-in during the September auctions, bounced back significantly on 13th October with several recording increases of more than 100 cents per kilogram greasy. Halfbred and Corriedale oddments also improved during October, albeit from a low base.
With good quantities of well grown Merino wools catalogued for both the 29th September and October 13th South Island wool auctions, buyer interest was considerable, despite that, in between the two NZ auctions, Australian brokers had reported a distinct softening in market interest.
The September 29th Christchurch auction saw prices for most Merino wools reach well above those ruling across the ditch the same week, however October 13th proved a little harder going in Christchurch as wool quality, in general terms, although still very good, may not have been of such a good standard as the previous sale with the most emphasis on slightly poorer Length & Strength test data.
Buyers attending the Christchurch auctions represented mainly European manufacturers, who have always been keen to buy good quality Merino types from the South Island, whereas Australian broker wool auctions are mainly dominated by wider Chinese buying interests.
During the next few weeks, the fine wool selling season will wind down substantially as most stations complete their hogget and wether shearing, resulting in a swing towards larger numbers of coarse wool sheep being shorn from November on.
With prices for coarse wool having remained low for such a long time, plus shearing and freight costs having increased substantially, reports indicate that there is likely to be more full-length fleece wool available towards the summer months than second-shear types, due to that practice having been overlooked by some growers, in order to save costs, therefore it will be interesting to see how some of the longer coarse wools have fared through the rather challenging spring weather patterns experienced.
That’s my view.
