The first real market test for unmulesed wool has not delivered a premium.
Elders this week held its much anticipated online auction of unmulesed wool and relative to last week's market, it failed to excite.
The online sale offered 1214 bales of non-mulesed wool, 458 bales from properties that have ceased mulesing and 1000 bales in the standard online catalogue.
Many of the buyers involved in the auction yesterday quoted the market unchanged to sellers' favour on better style wools, according to Elders.
However, the Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX) quoted the sale cheaper and stated the sale continued the downward trend which the wool market has been experiencing over the past few weeks.
Topping the market at 1563 cents per kilogram (clean) was a line of 14.9-micron weaner wool, 63mm in length and a staple strength of 44 Newtons, yielding 70.4pc.
An 18.1 micron line, with a length of 85mm, yield of 67.8pc and staple strength of 28 Newtons sold for 1072c/kg; the 18.5 micron indicator last week closed at 1294c/kg in Sydney and 1227c/kg in Melbourne.
Giving growers more hope was a 21.1m line of wool which sold for 938c/kg. It had a yield of 68.8pc, length of 86mm and staple strength of 58 Newtons and sold well above last weeks AWEX 21 micron indicator that closed at 841c/kg.
WoolProducers president, Don Hamblin, praised the initiative of the sale and hoped future sales would deliver a premium.
"It was a good first and the right thing to do," Mr Hamblin said.
"Hopefully we will see premiums develop as mills aggregate unmulesed wool lots in the future."
Relative to this week's sales there may be a price differential given the market could fall further but against last week's prices the unmulesed auction did not appear to lift prices.
The final clearance rate for the unmulesed wool was 72pc, according to Elders, made up of 78pc clearance for wool from non-mulesed sheep, 67pc clearance for wool from properties that have ceased mulesing and a 76pc clearance for its traditional online sale.
Elders general manager wool, Mark Rodda, admitted the result did not deliver the premium many woolgrowers had hoped for.
"It would have been nice to see a substantial premium but it was far from a failure, we had a lot of interest and I expected stronger demand but a number of buyers put together two or three containers and we will be having another go in the last Monday in June," Mr Rodda said.
Another company looking to gain a premium price for unmulesed wool is The Merino Company which groups and markets similar wools together along the wool pipeline.
"That is another way to attempt to gain an advantage for unmulesed wool but we believe the auction system maximises competition," Mr Rodda said.
Earlier this year Mr Rodda hoped unmulesed wool could deliver at least a 10-20c/kg premium to cover the cost of the extra management that went into producing the fibre on farm.
"We have an obligation to identify wool from non-mulesed sheep and properties that have ceased mulesing, to our overseas retailers," he said.
"If we don't, we fear that the wool industry could potentially lose these markets for ever."
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