Team effort ensures top wool results

WHEN you’re operating multiple businesses whose peak activities can collide at key seasonal times, you can depend on people more in the know than yourself to ensure optimum results from all your hard work.

For South East producer and seed cleaner Andrew Brodie, who also supports growers in the west Wimmera with his mobile seed cleaning business, this has become a necessary tool of trade.

Based at Mount Light, south of Naracoorte, Andrew, together with his wife, Katie, and their sons, Logan (12), Archie (9) and Austin (7), operate their own farm plus leased land in the region, including at Comaum just over the Victorian border.

They run about 1500 breeding ewes, including 300 Merinos and with the remaining Merino/Border Leicester first cross ewes mated to Poll Dorset sires for their prime lamb enterprise.

Andrew hopes to increase ewe numbers and recognises the land’s additional carrying capacity will be pivotal to the farm’s future.

Lambing starts at the beginning of May, with the majority of the second cross lambs sold during October‑November.

Shearing also occurs late October/early November, around the same time that grading of harvested canola seed commences to help improve the quality of growers’ deliveries.

The mobile seed cleaning business, Reynolds Seed Service, which uses an Edmonds Engineering seed cleaner, supports growers in the Upper and Lower South East, as well as over to the Wimmera region.

After harvest, Andrew is kept busy cleaning, grading and applying fungicides, insecticides and trace elements to mainly cereal seed retained by producers for the new season.

Following shearing, Andrew has long‑followed his grandfather’s advice to immediately sell the wool and he has had a long‑term relationship with Brendan Cobbledick of Quality Wool Naracoorte to make it happen.

“My grandfather always said sell at the same time because it evens out – it averages out over time. So we shear and sell,’’ he said.

“Brendan tells you straight up about the market – he calls a spade a spade. The whole Quality crew at Naracoorte (including Bill Lively, Bill Rumball and Jackie Lively) are great.

“We get the wool shorn, take it straight in, test it, work out the good lines and we sell it. We either take it in or they pick it up from me, which is great. It’s a busy time and they help out a lot.

“I’m flat‑out with the seed cleaning business in November, cleaning canola. If I was full‑time on the farm I might be able to sit down and work things out, but I put trust in people that are in the know.’’

The Brodies often take advantage of a nett price for the wool from Quality Wool, while they have also sold at auction previously.

Andrew said the wool from the largely crossbred flock was normally around 28 microns, although a drier season last year and some sheep sourced from Lameroo contributed to a finer micron average.

“Last year was some of our best wool sales ever,’’ he said.

Brendan said daily freighting of wool to Geelong from the local wool store at Naracoorte allowed the wool to be quickly tested and the company was able to offer a nett price in around five days, or the option of marketing the wool via the auction system.

“We can have a nett price five days after the wool leaves Naracoorte and growers can have their proceeds within up to 10 business days after that, or they can choose to sell at auction,’’ Brendan said.