The 90 kilogram bale had a mean fibre diameter of 11.9 microns — just 0.1 microns finer than the previous record holder, from Victoria — but cracking the 12.0 micron barrier was the superfine wool industry's equivalent of running the four minute mile.

Most extremely fines bales don't get sold in the open market, as growers in this sector of the industry tend to build relationships with processors. We have been approached more than once but, at this early stage of our program, we chose not to have a relationship, rather to go to auction, and perhaps allow new blood into the market.

That's what happened. Our buyer the Heng Yuan Xiang (HYX) group from China, was a new player, and ecstatic about being able to break the buying clique that, until now has been Italy, Japan or South Korea. HYX outbid the competition to win the prize bale for $675.000. It wasn't the hyped $1 million but the Chinese company — which operates 70 wool processing plants across China — indicated publicly it would have paid even more than $1 million if that had been required for auction success.

A month after the Sydney auction, Heng Yuan Xiang's general manager for marketing and promotion, Yuan Naiz Hong, turned up at Warroo with a group of Chinese journalists and a TV news crew. The Warroo story, Mr Yuan Naizhong's interpreter told the Goodrich's would reach 98 percent of the Chinese population.

For the family, that was the second dividend from their decision to go to full auction and make the most of the publicity potential of the world's finest-ever wool bale, publicity for the industry as well as Warroo itself.

The Goodrichs are not able to reveal many details of their approach, other than to say they built a climate controlled shed — not air-conditioned, but able to provide its woolly inhabitants with an environment as near as possible to ideal for wool production. The sheep are handfed a special diet, with Rick Goodrich suggesting that what is fed is more important than the quantity, and that other factors are also important, like overall management of the housed flock and avoidance of stress.

The family wool growing history goes back to great-great-grandfather Frederick Bracker, who came to Australia from Germany, in charge of one of the earliest importations of Saxon Merinos and — in the Australian pastoral tradition — went on to become a major Merino breeder himself and owner of Warroo — via Bernie Reppel ('The Furrow' No 2 2004)