Here's one wool producer's on-farm experience.
The quality of the text in the attachment is poor, so I have transcribed it as best I can.
 
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Traditionalists on Top in Wool Trial
by Mathew Cawood
 
One of Australia’s biggest private wool producers, Warren Coventry, has after five years of experimentation, decided the traditionalists offer a more profitable breeding strategy than the Soft Rolling Skin (SRS) camp.
 
Mr Coventry ran what may be the most comprehensive comparison to date of the rival breeding philosophies on his New England properties, which cover more than 20,000 hectares in all and run about 85,000 sheep.
 
For the past four years, Mr Coventry has employed Wal Merriman to class 1200 stud Merriville ewes and their progeny on “Mt Hanna”, while for the past five years SRS founder, Jim Watts, has classed about 7000 ewes to SRS specifications on “Eversleigh”.
 
About 15,000 sheep in all were involved in the SRS trial.
 
Most of Mr Conventry’s traditional-style sheep are influenced by Merriville genetics, while the SRS flock drew on Lorelmo and Stockton bloodlines.
 
“Eversleigh” is basalt country, typically producing the heaviest cutting sheep in the Lynoch empire, while “Mt Hanna” is basalt-influenced.
 
Mr Coventry admits his trial was scientifically inexact because of anomalies between properties and sheep classes, but the profit indications that emerged from it are too strong for him to ignore.
 
“I wanted SRS to work because it was new and innovative,” Mr Coventry said.
 
“The worst thing about the wool industry is that it is very conservative, which is why we went to Jim Watts in the first place.
 
“He has done the wool industry a service in refocussing it on style. We lost our way in the ’70s and ’80s.”
 
Nevertheless, on the basis of the latest figures out of Newcastle for Lynoch Pty Ltd, Mr Coventry’s company, he has in the past month decided to discontinue the SRS experiment.
 
Figures from the same November sale showed that the Merriville stud ewes on “Mt Hanna” cut 9.49 kilograms of 16.8 micron wool per head for a return of nearly $11 a head above the SRS ewes at “Eversleigh”, which cut 7.5kg/h of 17.5 micron wool. [*see correction at end - Kristi]
 
The stud factor weighed heavily in favour of the Mt Hanna flock, but traditional-style commercial ewes running on the Lynoch properties “Laura”, “Rockvale” and “Lynoch” also outperformed the SRS flock, even if to a much lesser degree.
 
Commercial traditional ewe wool with average micron ranging from 17.5 to 17.8 fetched from 37 cents a kilogram less than the SRS wool to 32c/kg more – but in the final per-animal assessment, ewes from the three properties made from 11 cents to $2.63 a head premium over the SRS flock.
 
The story was similar in other sheep classes.
 
Wool from traditional-style hoggets run at “Laura” brought 87 cents per head more than their “Everleigh” counterparts, and “Laura” wether wool brought $2.51 a head more than SRS wether wool – despite the traditional wool being tested at 38 Newtons compared to 41 Newtons (per kilotex) for the SRS fibre.
 
In this sale, discounting of SRS wool was minimal.
 
“The figures are telling me that SRS isn’t stacking up here,” Mr Coventry said.
 
His personal impression is that under Wal Merriman’s hand, the “Mt Hanna” stud flock has grown finer while frames have become more robust, but the SRS flock – after an initial “hybrid bounce” – has faild to shift substantially.
 
SRS has revolutionised the productivity of some flocks and stirred up a lot of valuable debate in the wool industry in the past few years, but the enthusiasm of its adherants at the production end is not being matched by key buyers.
 
Australian Wool Network northern regional manager, Harold Manttan, says while the better traditional line wool was now getting more than 2000 cents a kilogram already, even the best SRS spinning wool was failing to push much past 1100 cents.
 
That’s not from any inherent defect in SRS wool quality, he said, but is a reflection of the Italian spinners’ taste for traditional-style wools over the broad-crimping SRS wool.
 
“SRS tests finer than it looks,” Mr Manttan said.
 
“A 17-micron SRS wool can look like a 21 micron wool. The Italians all specify that they want wool that looks like its test result.
 
“The guys in Australia are told to buy a certain wool, and that’s what they do.”
 
 
Tried and True in New England
As the wool job shows no immediate signs of spectacular recovery, big private wool producer, Warren Coventry (pictured here with his dog [illegible]), is not only abandoning his work with SRS but reworking the structure of his enterprises.
 
“Wool is very much a discretionary and luxury product these days,” said Mr Coventry, who runs 85,000 Merinos across more than 20,000 hectares of New England.
 
“We have to personally reduce our emphasis on wool as an income generator, and possibly the whole industry has to slip back to a better supply-and-demand equity.”
 
For Mr Coventry, wool will in some cases give way to beef – but not entirely.
 
He believes New England is the home to some of the world’s best fine-wool country, and that there is no better enterprise for these areas.
 
As a result, he intends to cut back on wether numbers, but retain his ewe flock, now with a full focus on the “traditional” breeding philosophy and the Italian spinner market.
 
“If you’re growing fine wool for the Chinese, you’ll go broke,” he said.
 
“You have to keep the Italians interested – and the Italians have said they don’t want SRS wool.”
 
 
New Focus
- Major New England wool producer, Warren Coventry, is backing traditional over SRS wools after running comprehensive studies on his properties
- The study found traditional wools sold better overall than SRS
- Mr Coventry conceded also that fine wool buyers from Italy were not interested in SRS wool
 
 
*p3 attachment, 7/1/06
Coventry Correction
Last week’s story on New England wool producer Warren Coventry, included some inaccurate figures. The paragraphs relating to the relative value of the per head wool cut of two [illegible] of ewes should have read:
 
Figures from the same November sale showed the Merriville stud ewes on “Mt Hanna” cut 16.8 micron wool which returned an average of  949 cents a kilogram.
 
The SRS ewes at “Eversleigh” cut 17.5 micron wool which brought 750 cents a kilogram, and as a result their wool value was almost $11 a head lower than the “Mt Hanna” ewes.  
 
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