This module consists of 15 topics. The module was formerly designated WOOL-422-522, but this version is has been restructured to place the topics in a more logical order and to expand the marketing and promotion material.
By the end of this first topic you should have:
Australia is the world’s second largest (behind China) greasy wool producing country, accounting for about 19% of world production in 2016 (IWTO 2018). However, as wool yields are a lot poorer in China, Australia is still the largest producer of clean wool production with 22.8% (IWTO 2018). However, number of sheep farms and the amount of wool produced has been declining steadily in Australia (Figure 1.1 and 1.2). In 2009/10 sheep numbers reached their lowest point at 68 million head. Since then numbers have increased to 70.6 million in 2017/18 and is forecast to drop again to 66.9 million in 2018/2019 (ABARES 2019). In 2017/18 the average fleece weight was 4.5 kg (AWPFC 2019, ABARES 2019). Since the last survey in 2016-17, there were 152,376 specialist sheep farmers and a total of 230,241 farms producing sheep as either specialists or mixed enterprises (ABARES 2017).
A major research effort in clip preparation began in the 1960s and proceeded vigorously for the next decade. This research established the components of variation for the major processing characteristics of fibre diameter and fibre length and demonstrated that the major source of variation was at the fibre level so that separation of fleeces could have little influence on the level of variation within classed lines.
The catalyst for this research was the availability of new measurement technology. The microscope method for measurement of fibre diameter was too slow for extensive studies. The advent of the airflow technique provided a rapid and accurate measure of average fibre diameter until it was replaced by the faster techniques of the 90s.
Early research suggested that fibre diameter should replace crimp as an indicator of “fineness” (Duerden 1929; Lang 1947) and new results revealed the significant discrepancies between subjective appraisal of “fineness” (or quality number, quality count, spinning count) and measured average fibre diameter and measured and appraised yield (Whiteley & Charlton 1973) for individual sale lots.
On completion of this topic you should have an understanding of:
• Main breeds of sheep kept in Australia and their breed characteristics
• Principles which underlie wool classification in Australia
• Characteristics of wool fibre and their relationship to wool classification
• Importance of wool preparation to achieve a quality clip
On completion of this topic you should have an understanding of:
• style and type when describing raw wool and their effect on processing and pricing
• different classing systems, the current traditional system how it has evolved and the
reasons for this
• the underlying basis of the current system along with the principles of blending different
lots to meet specific requirements
• other classing systems operating in other parts of the world
On completion of this topic you should have:
On completion of this section you should have an understanding of:
On completion this Topic you should have developed an understanding of:
On completion of this topic you should be able to:
Upon completion of this topic you should be able to:
The aim of this section is to introduce readers to the principles of marketing and describe how various marketing techniques can be applied to the wool industry.
On completion of this topic you should have developed an understanding of:
On completion of this topic you should have an understanding of the:
On completion of this topic you should have an understanding of:
On completion of this topic you should be able to describe:
By the end of this topic you should have developed an understanding of: