The Season
What a contrast a few weeks makes. It now feels like winter is here with morning temperatures of less than 4 degrees over the last few days. So far, no frosts so warm soil temperatures are continuing to generate some growth in the pastures. Forecast rain later in the week will continue to keep things ticking along.
2022 Wagyu Edge Annual Conference
Unfortunately I was not able to attend this years conference in Melbourne. Luckily Koolang Wagyu was well represented by Geoff, Gillian and Steven Cummins. There were over 400 delegates at the conference with a good representation of new, younger members and many internationals.
The logical consequence of 400 people in the same room was the emergence of Covid among many attendees. Sometimes, not going to these events is extraordinarily lucky.
The highlight of the conference was undoubtedly the Elite Wagyu Sale. The record price paid for a Full Blood Wagyu Heifer was $400,000 for Lot 1 Sunnyside S0014 purchased by Yulong Investment. This represents a new benchmark and shows how modern reproductive services are able to utilise and exploit outstanding genetics when they are available. This Heifer will certainly be used to generate many embryos. The top price bull was $240,000 with an average of $83,000. The top price semen was $37,000 per straw with an average of $5,000 per straw across the sale.
2022 Calves
The first half dozen of the 2022 Full Blood calves are now on the ground. These are out of Q Heifers which were joined to QGI Bulls Q122 and Mayura Pioneer. We have had one set of twins already which is somewhat unusual. Calves born this year will be the first to be identified with the new AWA system which includes both the year letter T and the year 22, so the identifier will be KWAF22T001 and so on.
Markets
Wow. The strength of the Wagyu market globally continues not withstanding pandemics, wars, floods and other catastrophes. We are seeing prices of in excess of $10/Kg live weight for F1 Steers in the right weight range. Demand for bulls remains strong and we are focused on preparing both the remaining R Bulls and the new crop of S Bulls to be able to supply the best quality animals for the 2022 joining season.
