Factors affecting wool characteristics of sheep reared in Kashmir.

This study was conducted on 82,908 records of purebred and upgraded Kashmir Merino sheep to evaluate the performance of breed over the years. The data pertaining to fiber diameter (FD), staple length (SL), clean wool yield percent (CWY %), number of crimps/cm (NCPC), and medullation percent (MP) spread over a period of 15 years (2013-2017) was collected from Fleece Testing Laboratory Nowshera, Srinagar. The highest CV (%) was observed for MP, whereas the lowest CV (%) was observed for FD (2.07%). The least-squares means were 20.96 ± 0.002 μm, 4.05 ± 0.01 cm, 66.68 ± 0.01%, 4.38 ± 0.02 No/cm and 0.79 ± 0.05% for FD, SL, CWY (%), NCPC and MP, respectively. The year of shearing had highly significant (p < 0.01) effect on all the traits under the study. The study concludes that crossbreeding with exotic fine wool breeds has resulted improved genetic potential of native germplasm with respect to wool quality traits with Merino sheep performing better in the agro-climatic conditions of the State. Environment was also found to play a significant role in expression of wool quality traits during the period of the study.