Wool standard drops

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33370, 31 October 1973, Page 16

Wool standard drops

The drought and tight feed conditions in the last growing season are beginning to show up in the wools now coming into stores in Christchurch.

Brokers say that these effects are much more noticeable in wools that will be on offer at the third sale of the season on Friday than at offerings earlier in the season. Ewe wools off paddock country are particularly showing the effects of the season and are described as

showing tenderness, shortness in the staple, and extra fineness due to a lack of feed; and they are also carrying some dust. According to one firm this week’s sale is normally one of the best for hogget wools in Canterbury — there is a fairly big offering of both woolly and shorn hogget wools — but this year a lot of the wools on offer are scarcely recognisable compared with earlier sales. However, another broker said that some of the crossbred shorn hoggets and also some of the woolly Corriedale hoggets were quite good, but shorn Corriedale and halfbred hoggets were frequently very short and unattractive.

• On top of the lower stand- ■ ard of a lot of the offering, i sheep in the badly affected ! drought areas are also clip- : ping a lot less wool this year. ■ The spokesman for one firm of brokers said that many : clips were down 15 to 20 per r cent, and as much as 25 per : cent, on a per head basis, > and another firm reported • that some sheep normally t shearing about 101 b per head r were down by as much as 31b. The combined effect of a much smaller clip per head ; and also a reduction in sheep ! numbers is that much less ; wool is coming to hand for i sale. i The offering this week is : a little more than 17,000 ; bales. This sale was : scheduled for 20,000 bales. Over the whole season the likely offering through the • Christchurch centre is ■ expected to be well down. > Present estimates put the ! likely drop at about 15 to 20 t per cent — or about 25,000 1 to 30,000 bales. r However, wools from the east coast from about Par- ’ nassus northwards have opened up well. Wools on offer this week

are drawn mainly from North and Mid-Canterbury, with some from Marlborough but little from Nelson and the . West Coast. Fine wools pre- “ dominate.