Background to the DMFR Scheme

The Dark and Medullated Fibre Risk Scheme was first conceptualised by scientists at CSIRO during the 1980's.

These scientists knew that the non-uniform distribution of these fibres within a bale of wool made obtaining a representative sample for an objective test virtually impossible. At the time the interest was aimed at naturally pigmented fibres and urine stained fibres.

It was demonstrated that provided wool growers culled lambs with coloured fibres, and provided they classed their wool appropriately, and that they got rid of old sheep before too much medullation developed, then the risk of contamination of merino fleece wool was low.  In short, management practices on farm could dramatically reduce the risk of contamination of fleece wools.  The CSIRO scientists developed a systematic method for assigning a risk of contamination by taking into account management practices on farm and the age of the sheep.

The concept disappeared from the industry's radar in the early 1990's, largely because more important issues such as the stockpile, over production and wool prices post the demolition of the reserve price scheme were dominating the industry's concerns.

The DMFR concept was resurrected by AWTA Ltd and the Federation of Australian Wool Organisations in 2002, when research by AWTA Ltd and SARDI demonstrated that where wool growers had commenced breeding merino/damara crossbred lambs via their merino ewes then the lambs wer contaminating the merino wool, just by the day to day contact of the ewes with the lambs.  More importantly, this type of contamination was relatively uniformly distributed in the fleeces, and the potential for an objective test was realised.