OVK has established itself as leader in all of Southern Africa as far as the testing of wool and mohair fleeces is concerned. The OVK fleece-test laboratory was founded in 2002 and based on the OFDA 2000 technology. It is currently one of only two such licensed facilities in South Africa. The term OFDA stands for ‘Optical Fibre Diameter Analysis’. Although this technology, as far as wool is concerned, has been in practice for some time in Australia, the application for mohair is brand new. Klaas Kritzinger for OVK and Dr Greta Snyman for Grootfontein Agriculture College in Middelburg did pioneer-work to establish this technology for the mohair industry and currently the laboratory is acknowledged as the best of its kind globally.

The technology is especially crucial for mohair, where large price differences between fineness variations are the norm. In this respect the advantage of fleeces which are accurately tested for fineness thus plays a critical role as far as price is concerned. A further boon is that by applying this technique a lot or bale can be made as even as possible. All record-price mohair clips apply this technique, leaving no doubt about its financial benefits. The testing of rams to determine a breeding policy also plays a pivotal part in the demand for this service.

Details of this system and its methodology are available on request from Luané Stapelberg for mohair and Karen Daniel for wool at tel 041-4067500