FLOCK-TESTING SERVICE FOR MERINO BREEDERS

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29820, 12 May 1962, Page 6

FLOCK-TESTING SERVICE FOR MERINO BREEDERS

A New Zealander who is on the staff of the School of Wool Technology at the University of New South Wales at Kensington, Sydney, has developed a flock-testing service for New South Wales Merino breeders. He is Dr Euan M. Roberts, a senior lecturer ait the school, who was born in Christchurch. Dr Roberts’s work has been based on findings of research stations of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and New South Wales and South Australian Departments of Agriculture, which have shown that selection of sheep for fleece weight will lead to a rapid improvement of this character in the flock

Eye Appraisal

In the service devised by the School of Wool Technology the breeder has his rams classed in the normal way by eye and hand and those selected for the reserve flock are then shorn with the fleeces being weighed and a representative sample taken from the mid-side area for scouring. On the basis of the clean weight of the sample, a clean weight for the fleece can then be calculated and the rams are then classified into groups according to their weight performance. Dr. Roberts said that tn trials in tour New South Wales studs, the ewe progeny of rams which themselves produced the most clean wool also produced 6 to 11 per cent, more wool than the progeny of rams which were inferior producers.

Further trials are now in progress using artificial insemination as an aid in testing individually high cutting rams

Dr. Roberts said the objective was to encourage breeders to seek weight performance Information when they bought rams, but at present this could only be done for four-tooth rams. Some 70 per cent, of ram sales were of two-tooths which were in the wool and It was difficult to get a fleece weight before that stage His team was looking into the possibility of using a sampling system for this purpose without having to shear the sheep Funds for the work which has been done at the school have been provided from the research levy on wool sold in Australia and the school has received some £50.000 to £60.000 Dr Roberts said that so far the school had received good co-operation from about naif the owners of parent Merino studs and one of the biggest breeders would not now select rams by eye or hand unless their clean wool production was in one of the higher grades. A 20-minute colour film, "Flock Testing," has recently been made at the university by the Australian Wool Bureau

Dr. Roberts graduated bachelor of agricultural science from Massey College in 1950 and master of agricultural science in 1952. He then worked at the Ruakurti animal research station until August. 1953, when he went to Sydney to join the staff of the University of New South Wales.