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This story is about our merino success story and a select group of Tasmanian woolgrowers who've secured a lucrative deal with a German outdoor wear company. They're exporting 30 tonnes of wool a year to Europe and that figure is expected to triple in three years' time.

This story is about wool. There's been some good news recently for Australian producers, with prices up across the board. While the medium to broad range of wools are doing particularly well, growers are no longer getting a premium for superfine wool, which is why dual-purpose merinos, grown for both wool and meat, are becoming more popular.

A decade ago, a novel way of removing the fleece from sheep was being hailed as the wool industry's next big thing. BioClip, or biological wool harvesting, involved injecting the animals with a protein which caused the fleece to break at the skin. But with dwindling interest from woolgrowers, BioClip has been taken off the market.

Australia's native wildlife is disappearing at an alarming rate and the feral cat is the chief culprit. But they're now also affecting sheep farmers in Tasmania. The cats are carrying diseases which are being passed on to flocks, with disastrous consequences.

The tap has been turned on in Tasmania's Midlands, with the state's biggest irrigation scheme now operational and even checked out by the Prime Minister. New dams and irrigation equipment are transforming the historic farming district and the first irrigated crops have gone in.

Frenchman Roland Mouret is famous for the Galaxy dress, a celebration of the classic hourglass figure, accessible to women of all sizes. He was in Sydney casting a critical eye over the latest crop of emerging designers competing in the Woolmark Prize.

If it was a football match, a group of Australian meat producers would now be in the time-on period with a couple of points in it. They're all participants in what's called the Meat and Livestock Australia Challenge. It's a 12-month competition between six beef and lamb producers to find out who's best at improving their business.

One hundred years ago, as the devastating First World War got underway, Australian woolgrowers came up with an ingenious way of contributing to the war effort. This often overlooked act of kindness brought great comfort to the diggers when they needed it most.

In the early 1950s, Australia was on the verge of a remarkable wool boom and a series of stunning photographs documenting this fascinating time has only recently come to light. The images were taken by a former Life magazine photographer, Francis Reiss, who was visiting Australia while working for his father's wool processing company in Yorkshire.

Every now and then an outsider comes along and questions the accepted way of doing things. Marine physicist, Nan Bray, is doing just that on her superfine wool property in Tasmania. The way she runs her 1,600 Saxon Merinos may seem radical but she says it works, as wool production and quality is up and her costs are down. The 'Nan Bray way' combines old fashioned shepherding skills, ground-brea...

It's judgement day at Pooginook Station, a famous name in the world of Merino sheep. Every ram in the latest mature batch of stud animals is being carefully scrutinised, evaluated and graded. It's an intensive, exhaustive process, combining computer software and human brainpower.

Australia's wool processing industry was once an important part of our national and rural economy. But a string of closures that followed the collapse of the reserve price scheme in the early '90s and the rise of China as a processing powerhouse means there are now very few factories left. One Victorian company, though, has survived, and through both reinvention, innovation and patient ownershi...

The recent rise in wool prices may be good news for growers, but those chasing returns in super-fine and ultra-fine wool still don't believe they're getting the premium their product deserves. One area that offers some hope is the next-to-skin clothing category, which is currently a pretty small part of the wool apparel market, partly because of wool's reputation for being a bit prickly.

If you're a lamb producer based on the mainland then you may want to look away now, for a group of Queensland butchers claims Tasmanian lamb is the best in the country. They're prepared to pay a premium for it too, as they claim their customers notice the difference if the product isn't from the island state.

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