Sheep farmers are actively seeking unbiased information on the performance of sheep breeds and bloodlines within breeds to help improve their overall profitability.  To help answer this question, from 2009 to 2014, the Elmore Field Days Inc ran a comparison to assist sheep producers determine the merits of five ewe genotypes for prime lamb and wool production.  Each of the five genotypes was represented by 42 ewes randomly selected from three properties. The ewes were joined annually to terminal sires for prime lamb production and run together as one mob except at lambing; there were six opportunities to lamb, the first as ewe lambs.    Ewe genotypes being compared were Border Leicester x Merino cross, local Merinos from northern Victoria, Centre Plus Merinos, a dual purpose Merino bloodline, Dohne, a dual-purpose breed developed in South Africa and the South African Meat Merino (SAMM) also originally bred in South Africa.  The local Merinos produced the heaviest fleeces and Centre Plus Merinos the finest.  The BL x Mo and SAMMs had the highest reproduction but less valuable fleeces.  The Centre Plus Merinos had reproduction intermediate between the higher SAMMs and BL x Mo and the lower local Merinos and Dohnes.