She received the national title at the 2017 Australian Wool and Sheep Show in Bendigo last month.

The fourth-year bachelor of rural science student has played a hand in her Armatree family’s border leicester stud since she was old enough to “wander into the sheepyards, asking a million questions”.

Miss Bradley is doing an honours project on using genomics for predicting reproductive traits in the breed.

She’s also been appointed as a Merinoselect development officer with Sheep Genetics Australia – an Armidale-based role she’ll take up full-time at the end of this year.

Competition co-ordinator and Australian Sheep Breeders’ Association vice-president, Dan Korff, said judges were impressed by her industry commitment and personal achievements. 

“Peta has a broad range of experience for someone so young and she is certainly not afraid to go out of her comfort zone,” he said.

“She is pursuing a career, contributing to her industry and maintaining a significant involvement in her family’s operation.”

There were six other finalists from across Australia.

Miss Bradley is a current Australian Wool Education Trust undergraduate scholarship holder, and won the UNE Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Academic Performance in 2014.

In 2012, she won a sheep judging prize at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.

Three years later, she became the Next Gen Judging Representative to attend the Canterbury Show in Christchurch, New Zealand.

This led to her being invited to judge at the Canberra Royal Show this year.

Miss Bradley said she hoped to eventually return to the family farm.

“Studying at UNE is very complementary to the work I do at home on the stud and has enabled me to be more hands-on in the paddock,” she said.

“The Sheep Genetics Australia role will involve extension work to help bridge the gap between research and producers, and I’m really looking forward to helping improve those services.”

Miss Bradley has started in that role one-and-a-half days a week until she completes her studies.

“I’m quite fortunate in that I’m able to transition in before I start full-time,” she said.

However, Miss Bradley said tradition remained critical to the sheep industry.

“Traditional selection is still important,” she said.

“Showing sheep is a great way to encourage young people to enter the industry and is an invaluable way to make contacts while also developing stock skills.”

She said she’d chosen UNE because it hosted the Sheep CRC and Sheep Genetics, right on the doorstep of a range of New England farming enterprises.

“The specialised sheep and wool units, as well as the genetics units, have put me in good stead,” she said.

“I hope to draw upon the integrated systems approach that I’ve learnt during my degree in my new role, where I’ll be working with other UNE alumni.”