Dannevirke farmer Mark Redward with his winning fleece.
A total of 25 fleeces were entered in this year's competition, slightly down on previous years.
"Interest in wool is waning as the price of wool is down. People need to be returning to buying wool carpets and wool insulation to get the price back up," Hale said.
The other difficulty was the difficulty was that full wool hogget fleeces were needed and many farmers chose to second shear.