Elders district wool manager Craig Potter, left, with Southern Clip of the Year Award winners Stud Park South owners Sarah and Pat Millear.

WILLAURA Merino stud and commercial operation Stud Park South has won the Elders Southern 2023/24 Supreme Clip of the Year award and the coveted bronze ram with a 900-plus bale offering.

Stud Park South owners Pat and Sarah Miller were the July/August monthly award winners with their 915-bale clip that was boosted by wethers kept and shorn due to a sheep market downturn.

At the Sheepvention Rural Expo today, Elders wool quality assurance and marketing manager Samantha Wan said the Stud Park South operation includes 20,000 sheep made up of the stud and commercial flocks, and a substantial cropping operation.

Elders wool technical manager Breanna Hayes said the Stud Park South/Edgarley clip classed by Homestead Shearing classer Judith Ratana consistently displayed beautifully even style averaged 18.6 micron stylish soft-handling wool with no marketing discrepancies.

“It was a great clip to work with.”

The fleece wool made up 77 percent of the clip and had a yield of 75.4pc, staple length of 96mm, tensile strength of 35 Newtons/kilotex and 0.5pc vegetable matter content.

Pat Millear said “we’re blown away really.”

“It was a bit of a surprise and obviously it’s a team effort.”

He said the clip was the biggest the operation had ever offered.

“It was probably the best clip we’ve ever had in volume and quality.”

He said Judith Ratana has always done an outstanding job and Homestead Shearing always put an exceptional team into the seven-stand shed.

“We were shearing north of a 100 sheep a day, but they do a fantastic job and we’ve said you wouldn’t have a clip that was prepared as well as this without the girls and the guys doing a fantastic job.”

He thanked Elders for the support they had given the operation, including district wool manager Craig Potter.

Mr Millear said three age groups of wethers contributed to the volume of the clip, that is normally 650-700 bales.

“We shear in April for a month because it works for our management.”

He said the season, with significant Summer rain last year, had helped the condition of the sheep, probably adding a kilogram per head in extra wool cut.

“My blokes are very good stockmen and they make sure the ewes are getting good nutrition.”

The clip has won some previous monthly awards, but it was first time it had won the season award.

Mr Millear said the wool flow has been improved by taking all the wool bins out, adding two wool presses – we run four wool presses, one for pieces and three for fleece lines. The wool hnadlers skit on two big square wooden tables and the classer has a round wool table to assess fleeces and they then go straight into a press.

“It eliminates probably 80pc of the double handling and it’s so much easier.

“It’s a testament to Judith Ratana because she has got such a good hand and feel, and it gives her time,” she said.

Ms Wan said for 30 years the award has recognized and honoured clips of great quality and presentation.

“The importance of an evenly bred clip and the quality of work that has been carried out by hose in the shed is what we set out to recognize when the award is judged each week.

“We truly look for clips that solidify Australia’s reputation for high quality wool.

“Clips that instantly command wool buyers’ attention and are backed by the attention to detail in the paperwork and also in the presentation.”