ROYAL ADELAIDE SHOW: Karoonda returns to win best in school wools

In only the second year of the competition, 15 schools entered 24 fleeces, which were shorn last September from wethers prepared for the school wether competition, but were not shown.

The fleeces were judged in early August on a number of qualities, including comfort factor, standard deviation, spinning fineness, style, soundness, colour, uniformity of length and clean fleece weight.

The winning Karoonda entry - an 18.1-micron fleece weighing 4.9 kilograms and yielding 72 per cent - scored 76.3 points out of a possible 100, by judges Rod Miller from AWN and Tony Kidman from Nutrien Wool.

Karoonda Area School agriculture teacher Carolyn Johnson said there was much excitement among the team after the major win.

"We won the zone 5 section last year, but to win the overall this year was fantastic, especially for those students who prepared the wethers last year," she said.

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The school's wethers were donated by Loller Partners, Karoonda, and Woodoona stud, Borrika, and were fed a pre-formed pellet mix targeted at finishing sheep.

"To be successful in these fleece and wether competitions, it comes down to a combination of environment and genetics," Ms Johnson said.

Karoonda Area School had a few successes in the schools wether competition, also being named best presented pen of three with an even line of Sandalwood Poll-blood wethers, while student Shantal Wittwer was runner-up in the class handler competition.

School wool competition convenor Peter Conrick said competition entries doubled this year and hopes to at least do that again next year.

"There were 74 teams entered in the wether competition, we would love to see them all enter next year - I want to fill the cabinet up will school wools!" he said.

Mr Conrick said they were now collecting fleeces for the third year of the competition.