23 Follow us on @PrairieFarming Better Farming | October 2024 WOOL PELLETS & SOIL If annual drought conditions have been making you feel baaahd, then you should know that there is a sustainable solution that might be closer (and older) than you think – wool pellets. When asked what you can use wool for, most people will assume it is yarn for knitting and textiles. Same for Karri Munn-Venn of Leystone Farms, in Luskville, Que. “We got into sheep because I love knitting,” explains Munn-Venn. “I love wool – it’s a fantastic product.” On the other hand, Jennifer Osborn of Ecowool Canada near Guelph, Ont. was gifted two sheep over 20 years ago. “I had trouble with the idea of just raising meat sheep – it seemed wasteful not to use the wool.” Osborn took her wool to a mill, and they turned her down since the wool wasn’t yarn quality. “And so began a nearly 20-year journey of what to do with wool, besides knitting, because to this day, I still don’t knit.” Osborn began to educate herself on how to felt, since “felt is a good option for rugs and landscaping material,” which opened up a whole new world. So what can you use wool for, besides felting and knitting? “Wool is amazing,” says MunnVenn. “It can be used in textiles, insulations, as a fire retardant, bedding, and as a soil amendment. And in terms of Canadian wool, we have more quality wool here than people realize. We have such a variety here, and people don’t embrace it; they just assume you have to get the good stuff from far away.” Leanna Maksymiuk of Waste Not Wool in the Okanagan Valley, B.C., noticed that “there are a lot of meat sheep around, and all the wool either goes to the landfill, or is burned or buried.” That seemed like too much of a waste of potential – and no farmer wants to waste anything, be it time, money, or resources. So Maksymiuk opted to import a shredder and pellet machine from Europe and collects wool from local farmers for pelletizing. Maksymiuk takes all the wool she can get her hands on. “Sometimes it sits for a long time, but I don’t want to say no.” Because she’s pelletizing, Maksymiuk doesn’t need to worry about the cleanliness of the wool – within reason, of course. “There can be hay, straw, manure in the wool. I run it through the shredder first, where it gets chopped into fine pieces. Then it goes into the pellet mill, which is essentially an extruder. This presses the wool through a mill head. “The lanolin in the wool is a natural binder, so the pressure of the roller melts the lanolin, binding the pellets together. Boom, you have pellets.” For those who raise sheep and deal with wool as a waste product, you might scoff at the thought of using wool as a soil amendment, since it’s difficult to burn and doesn’t break down while sitting in piles or totes. However, wool is a biodegradable product, and when pelletized, wool can biodegrade within a reasonable time frame. Why do the pellets break down, whereas wool doesn’t? Maksymiuk explains: “The wool is shredded and chopped so fine, and then compacted tightly into the pellet. The compacted pellets expand and contract with moisture, and that speeds up the breakdown process – the pellets will totally disappear in six to nine months.” Why else might one consider using wool pellets as a soil amendment? For Maksymiuk’s customers, the biggest benefit is “water retention. Everyone is looking for a reason to water less, and wool pellets can hold up to three times their weight in water.” Wool pellets can hold up to three times their weight in water. Leanna Maksymiuk photo
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