![AUCTION OUTING: Elders district wool manager Steph Brooker-Jones, Lucindale, and Heather Foster, Bool Lagoon. AUCTION OUTING: Elders district wool manager Steph Brooker-Jones, Lucindale, and Heather Foster, Bool Lagoon.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/HP8JNNb9L5GxeLhGSmNhXK/f785e969-4d83-48cb-9586-9fc1d755dd0a.jpg/r0_0_6000_3693_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Many wool producers will be looking forward to a strong season after solid rains in May and June, according to Elders district wool manager Steph Brooker-Jones.
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Ms Brooker-Jones said that despite a very dry autumn, the May-June rains had left most producers in the Mid and Lower South East with a positive outlook.
"We are talking a similar return compared to last year," she said.
"Producers were supplementary feeding in April and some may have sold a mob while others may have kept an extra mob.
"Some people may have gotten rid of 200 ewes due to the dry autumn and that may impact production.
"But the recent rains where many people received 100 millimetres for May and June has eased a bit of pressure.
"We are expecting similar microns, similar yields and similar cuts per head.
"Lambing looks like being back 5 per cent to 10pc but most producers seem to have done their homework and maintained condition with feeding.
Ms Brooker-Jones expects similar wool yields and cuts to 2018 with those with Merinos cutting five to seven kilograms of 19 to 21 micron wool.
Anthony and Heather Foster, trading as GR Foster and Co, run a self-replacing flock of 1100 breeding Merino ewes on 546 hectares at Bool Lagoon.
Half the Fosters' flock is joined to rams from the Keller family's Ramsgate stud while the other half are run with Border Leicesters from Rod and Tracy Willmott's Hanookra stud.
The Fosters believe they are only down about 30 lambs and have had better survival rates of ewes than last year, due in large part to a supplementary feeding strategy.
They recently sold 47 bales at the Melbourne wool auction.
Mrs Foster said they were in a unique situation of having had a "pretty good" season.
"We've had a good run," she said.
"We endured a long autumn, but we have enjoyed some good rains and good growing in the last two months."
They were a finalist in Elders SA Clip of the Year.
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