Wool quality continues to be an issue for the market with water stained and heavy unscourable volumes well above normal.
In fact, extreme weather conditions for a large part of 2022 has significantly impacted on Merino wool production.
According to industry specialists, not only is wool quality being compromised due to the excessive wet conditions, staple lengths have increased due to shearing constraints.
"The extremely wet year has made it difficult and uncomfortable for Merinos to say the least," Nutrien Ag Solutions south east wool broker David Hart said.
"It is an overall picture of increased mortality, reduced fecundity or joining rates, long grass and miss mothering.
"There is a whole range of things that can have an impact and no doubt we are being hit by more of these factors than usual this year."
He said the faults in the wool have affected the market.
"We have been seeing it for the last 18-months, but it has gotten worse, particularly in weaner lambs wool," Mr Hart said.
"It is a characteristic of Merino wool, when stock are young, to bear the brunt of seasonal extremes. In weaner wool there has been a lot of colour a lot of weathered fleeces, and higher incidence of bacterial or water stain.
"This is because weaners tend to be more open in their tip than an adult shorn sheep."
According to Mr Hart, the newest additions to the flock are also not as resilient in terms of seeking shelter and their feed conversion efficiency.
"On all measures, they don't cope as well as an adult sheep," he said.
"But after their first shearing, sheep will be more tolerant or resilient to weathering."
He said on the other end of the scale, in an extreme drought, weaner wool will also take on a lot more dust, yield lower and tend to be more tender.
It is a characteristic of Merino wool, when stock are young, to bear the brunt of seasonal extremes
- David Hart, south east wool broker, Nutrien Ag Solutions
Independent Commodity Services analyst Andrew Woods said wool quality is an issue for both Merino and crossbred wool, with prices for the faulty types highly variable.
"Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, or in this case the exporter, when looking at faulty wool, if it has some other specifications which are useful," Mr Woods said.
"The fact that auctions are a great blending mechanism tends to be overlooked when the pros and cons of the wool selling system are discussed.
"It is within the blending, or more accurately aggregating farm lots into mill consignments, that the usefulness of a lot can vary according to the immediate need of an exporter."
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The latest Rural Bank November insights revealed the average wool length has risen by 2.1mm year-on-year, driven by strong seasonal conditions.
And according to Australian Wool Testing Authority (AWTA) data, length is 6.8mm longer than in the peak of the last drought in 2018.
The report revealed the increased staple length is also exacerbated by the delays in shearing caused by labour shortages and wet weather and unshorn trade sheep are seen as a liability in some markets due to the burden of shearing.
Some evidence of these shearing delays lies in the testing data.
The Australian Production Forecasting Committee has forecast a 4.9pc increase - around 95,000 bales - in wool production year-on-year.
The progressive tally this year is only 1400 bales ahead of the same time last year.
