THE Kings are king of the 2018 IGA Perth Royal Show fleece section with their Rangeview Grazing, Darkan, being announced on Monday as winner of this year’s Supreme fleece award produced by a stud superfine Poll Merino ram.
A surprised but delighted Jeremy King said it was good news to claim the top award after having been the bridesmaid on four occasions, twice with ram and twice with ewe fleeces, in 30 years of showing on and off at the premier Perth event.
“We hadn’t entered wool in Perth for the past two years but Melinda, my wife, encouraged me to nominate some fleeces this year so we selected three ram and three ewe fleeces,” Mr King said.
“I shore them and dad (John King) prepared them so it was a bit of a team effort.”
The Poll Merino ram, from their Rangeview stud AV (Avington bloodlines) family, was judged reserve champion superfine ram at the recent Rabobank WA Sheep Expo in Katanning and shorn a few days later.
“We shedded him and showed him because I believed he had the best fleece of his entire ram drop,” Mr King said.
“And actually he is catalogued in our up-coming on-property ram sale.”
The super producer scored 96 out of a possible 100 points for a fleece which tested 17.4 micron, 99.9 per cent comfort factor, 111mm staple length, 50 N/kt strength, with greasy fleece weight of 7.1 kilos and was visually very white, bright and extremely evenly crimped.
The judging panel of chief judge Tim Chapman, Primaries, Graeme Luff, Primaries, Tim Burgess, Elders and Cameron Henry and Matthew Chambers, Landmark, were high in their praise for the quality of the almost 190 fleeces entered.
“The top fleece caught our eye for its evenness throughout the entire fleece and its subjective style and handle which was backed up by its overall test results including an excellent comfort factor,” Mr Chapman said.
“The quality of fleeces this year was very good overall which was a bit of a surprise to us given the season.
“It reflected good management practices from farmers who had clearly looked after their sheep well in the tight times.
“There were a lot of fleeces in the 40s for strength and quite a few in the 50s which is very good,” he said.
“White and bright were other noticeable factors, as well as some terrific comfort factor measures which resulted in quite a number of fleeces finishing in the 90s on points.
“I think we are really seeing the benefit of the emphasis stud breeders and the industry has placed on comfort factor in recent years,” Mr Chapman said.
“And it was nice to have more entries from commercial farmers this year with the split being about 60pc stud fleeces and 40pc commercial fleeces.”
