Lake Grace wool fetches bumper price

"I've produced more crops and more wool this season than I ever have before," Mr Taylor said last Thursday at Westcoast Wools' Bibra Lake show floor.

A day trip to Perth with parents Peter and Lyn and farm manager Chris Cody to see his wool clip sold at the Western Wool Centre (WWC) proved a bonus for Mr Taylor, as all 142 bales found new homes at good prices.

"They are well and truly the best prices I've ever got for my wool," he said, after Westcoast auctioneer Danny Ryan knocked down the last of his 10 fleece lines.

Mr Taylor's timing was impeccable.

His wool from an early march shearing went straight to Westcoast Wool's store and to auction.

This wool was from 4600 Merino sheep, including lambs, which cut an average of 5.5 kilograms of wool, with some ewes cutting up to 7.5kg

"I've always done it that way, shear and then get rid of the wool straight away," Mr Taylor said.

"We dodged the rain so there were no hold-ups with shearing."

His wool was offered just as the wool market started to waver at the WWC and retreat from Wednesday's all-time record prices for 18.5-19.5 micron wools and an all-time record high for the Western Indicator of 1557 cents per kilogram.

Buyers largely ignored the fact his fleece wool generally was over long at between 103 and 110 millimetres staple length and, at between 19.3 and 20.8 microns, right on the mid-micron borderline where buyer interest and price drops away quickly.

There was solid bidding across buyers for it.

"Another half micron broader and we might have been in trouble," Mr Ryan said after the auction.

Mr Taylor's fleece lines sold to tops of 1357c/kg greasy (2134c/kg clean) and 1350c/kg (2212c/kg clean) for his 17.3 and 16.9 micron lambs' wool with shorter staple lengths of 65 and 63mm.

His broader and longer fleece wools achieved 990c/kg (1484 clean) or better, with successful bids split between Chinatex, Techwool Trading, PJ Morris Wool and Tainyu Wool.

His pieces and bellies wool sold to a top of 1143c/kg (1934 clean) to Westcoast Wools and Swan Wool Processors.

Westcoast Wools' veteran wool buyer and export sales specialist John Kirkpatrick said the sale of Mr Taylor's wool was aided by "very good mid breaks and low vm (vegetable matter)".

A good season with ample feed had resulted in strong fibre unlikely to break in the middle when stretched during processing and summer rains had washed dust and dirt from the wool which naturally had a well-defined crimp, Mr Kirkpatrick explained.

"They've been on green right the way through, there's been good pick available for them," said Mr Taylor of his sheep this season.

He farms 4046 hectares south of Lake Grace with an enterprise split of 70 per cent cropping and 30pc sheep.

"We were lucky and dodged the frost - there was a bit (of crop damage), but we didn't take a hit like some of the others and our wheat, barley and canola were all good," Mr Taylor said.

"We've done all the (weed) spraying and there's good autumn subsoil moisture so I'd say we'll be sowing canola again in a few weeks."

But while crop yields have been his best, prices have not been impressive so Mr Taylor is looking to build sheep numbers because, unlike cropping, prices for wool and sheep meat have been exceptional.

"I'm hoping to build up to 3000 breeding ewes," he said.

"I've kept the old ewes, the ones I would normally have culled this year, for an extra season and we lamb in early June.

"Our lambing average is only about 88pc so we might have to do a bit more work on improving that.

"We buy Leovale rams - we keep it local by buying our rams from Fred Leo at Lake Grace.

"It's convenient for us, they produce a good, big type of sheep with open wool and we don't have much trouble with flies."

Mr Taylor was one of the farmers who enjoyed the CBH Group study tour of China and Vietnam last September.

He featured prominently in a short video of the study tour produced by CBH.