"Merryville makes a deal with Spinners"

During 1999 Merryville entered a commercial partnership with Marco Schneider and other clients of Giovanni Schneider including Ermenegildo Zegna and Loro Piana.

As a stud breeder this alliance is important as we can determine exactly what these spinners want, ie. what our customers want.  Our alliance also includes Martzotto and their brand name Hugo Boss and longterm contracts are now in place for the better styled 19, 18 and 17 microns wools. These major Italian mills have investments of hundreds of millions of dollars in the wool industry and I consider them the future of our fine wool indusry as they buy almost 50% of wools 19.5 micron and finer.

We have learned that these spinners emphasise that they require wools being of the following type:

• Tensile strength of 40N/Ktex and better
  

• 85mm in length and less

• Must show good crimp with a square flat tip,

• Penalties are incurred for 90 - 95 mm and longer

They say that these wool types are the most suitable for high speed, efficient spinning and weaving and give drape and elasticity to the cloth.

It is therefore important for each wool producer to identify a market and choose genetics for that market.  In the case of Merryville our target is the Italian 19.5 micron and finer market with some of our broader wools going to Korea, Japan and top makers.

Over the years, Merryville has maximised wool cuts and established heritable, quality wool types and traits that are in high demand by spinners. At wool sales around the country Merryville and its clients are repeatedly within the top percentage of wool sale returns, further demonstrating the genetic performance of Merryville Stud.

At Merryville we believe there are two main areas of production, the first being pasture and management and the second being genetics.  Woolgrowers need to get their pastures right and tailor the genetics to what the woolbuyer requires.

Future fine wool production must come from highly productive pastures, as this is the most efficient way to produce kilos of wool per hectare