Strong competition for Young Judges Competition at Mingenew Midwest Expo

Held in the Elders Livestock Arena, the competition was placed at the forefront for anyone attending the expo.

Positioned just inside the main entry gate, it was hard to miss the livestock and fleeces ready and waiting to be judged by the industry experts of the future.

This year saw only one main school enter, WA College of Agriculture, Morawa, (WACoA), however, this did nothing to lessen the competition from the students, nor their excellent performance across all of the categories.

The Young Judges Competition is for students aged under 18 years of age, who traditionally compete across four livestock sections - Merino sheep, meat sheep, fleece and cattle judging.

These livestock sections are Agricultural Shows Australia State final qualifiers, with the winners able to compete at the Perth Royal Show Young Judges Competition later in the year.

This year at Mingenew the students only competed in three categories - Merino fleece, Merino sheep and meat sheep judging, but showed great promise and skill.

The Merino sheep and meat breed judge, Elders Gingin representative and Muchea auctioneer Graeme Curry, said the calibre of the students on the day was excellent and it was great to see their enthusiasm for the industry.

Mr Curry, along with Arra-dale Merino and Poll Merino and Sandown Poll Dorset and White Suffolk stud principal Les Sutherland, Perenjori, were tasked with guiding the students through their paces and selecting the top four out of a field of more than 25 students.

"It was encouraging to see these young students so positive, polished and ready to compete," Mr Curry said.

"For a group of students, with many who had never competed before, they really were very good.

"The lack of nerves, their excitement and their poise was extremely good and such a great thing to witness.

"Their lack of experience really did not show through, they handled each situation well and approached the whole competition with confidence, I cannot commend them enough."

He said as judges, he and Mr Sutherland looked for the students' skills and knowledge over the two sheep breed judging sections.

"With the Merino sheep, we looked for the students' ability to differentiate between wool type, staple length, colour and density, as well as body structure, conformation, spring of rib, legs and feet," Mr Curry said.

"We asked them to place the rams in place order from one to four, as was decided by myself and Les.

"The meat breeds followed the criteria of structure, muscling, correctness, feet and their carcase attributes."

The entire group of entrants were asked to fill out worksheets giving their reasons and conclusions for each animal.

"We were able to go through these worksheets and decide upon the top four students," Mr Curry said.

The top four were then given the opportunity to present their reasoning to the judges.

"The students had to articulate about how and why they made their decisions," he said.

"We judged them on criteria including appearance - the way they physically presented themselves, their confidence, their accuracy and their industry terminology/knowledge."

Mr Curry said he was buoyed by the prospect of these students being future faces in the industry, as their enthusiasm, confidence and presentation were definitely a very positive outlook.

Judging of the fleece competition was undertaken by WACoA Morawa technical officer wool, sheep and cattle David Mills, with assistance from Elders district wool manager Breanna Hayes, who provided the fleeces.

Mr Mills said the fleeces were very varied in quality to give the students the opportunity to witness and assess the attributes accurately and rank the fleeces from first to fourth.

"To start with, the students had to rank the fleeces from one to four and pick out all the faults," Mr Mills said.

"They had to identify attributes including colour/bloom, tensile strength, style - AWEX grading, bulkiness of fleece, staple length and evenness across the entire fleece, with most of these characteristics being out of 10."

Again the students who were most correct across all the fleeces were able to advance to stage two of the selection process.

"The chosen students then had to present their reasoning to me," Mr Mills said.

"They were judged on appearance, confidence, ability to talk in both industry and show terminology."

Mr Mills said that at WACoA Morawa, about 75 per cent of the students were not from farms and that of the remaining 25pc, only about 20pc had sheep onfarm, so it was fantastic to see the students' knowledge advancing so well about the sheep industry.

"It is great to see the students doing so well and how much they have learnt," Mr Mills said.

"One of the students has been attending shows and competing in the junior judging for three years and this year was the first time he won a sash and it was first place - it is so great to see his learning and commitment pay off."