He is also an agriculturist because he graduated from Dookie Agricultural College in 1958 with honours.
He opted for shedding specially selected, coated, superfine Merino sheep and feeding them carefully to produce the finest wool possible. Only five years later in 2001, he produced a bale of wool that fetched a world record price of $1200 a kilogram at auction. “Our wool was also displayed at the entrance to the Sydney Olympic games,” he said.
Ian settled on Merino wethers for his operation and started a fastidious classing project to get the right sheep. Initially he selected for the consistency and fineness of their wool, the number of crimps per millimetre of wool staple as well as total staple length.
He said the ideal length for ultrafine wool tops - the cleaned, combed and aligned wool fibres - was 72mm. But that was difficult to achieve because while the length of newly shorn wool was often about 76mm, it could easily come back to say 62mm after processing.
Ian said it was also important that fibres be strong because the stronger they were the faster they could be spun into yarn.
The next selection criteria was how the sheep behaved in the shed. “Some sheep can’t handle that environment, but most conform,” he said. “They make hierarchies within the two extremes of bullies and timid ones. But we had to keep moving the bullies around the pens and that was half our job because most sheep continued producing quality wool for at least six years”.
Providing healthy feed was usually straight forward but was a problem during drought. In 2008, he bought in straw from the Riverina which resulted in seriously ill sheep. Ian said that after some investigation it turned out that the straw had Yersinia pestis bacteria in it, which is what also causes the black death in humans. “We only lost six sheep out of 260 but that was bad enough,” he said.
Shearing was done slowly by one shearer, local Keith Hammond, at the rate of about 80 a day. That ensured plenty of time could be devoted to ensuring the quality of each fleece.
Ian and his family became involved in processing their wool into yarn and clothing sold under the Jemala brand. Specialists in high end-luxury wool, Ian demonstrated to us passing a two square metre superfine wool shawl from their collection through a wedding ring. This technique was developed by US customs to detect shawls illegally made from the superfine hair of a rare and protected antelope.
Ian explained that they have had to go to Italy for wool processing because, although there are some small wool processing businesses, Australia has shut down nearly all its wool processing and there are no good spinners or processors of fine wool.
Loro Piana is an Italian fabrics and clothing company specialising in high-end, luxury cashmere and wool products. Loro Piana used to buy the finest bale in the world and always had a list of buyers.
Jemala’s wool has also featured in Italian high-end luxury cashmere and wool producer Cruciani’s products sold in prestigious Moscow stores favoured by oligarchs. “Cruciani’s has the reputation of selling the finest in the world with customers so rich they don’t ask about prices and just buy what they like”. However, Ian noted that “We are really struggling right now. One of the reasons is the oligarchs have gone to water, have gone greener, have been affected by the Ukraine Invasion”.
Our speaker for on Tuesday 3rd May will be Trevor Phillips, an agricultural contractor based at Molyullah. About 25 years in the business, he travels up to 80km from Benalla using five Fendt tractors, three round and three square balers as well as seeding equipment. He is currently sowing winter crops near Goorambat, part of a 7000 acre sowing and fertilising remit.
David Palmer