One Pellet to ‘Wool’ Them All

Friday, October 25, 2024

This Common Sheep Byproduct Could Be a Valuable Soil Amendment

By Stacy Berry

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 Munn-Venn. “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.”

Munn-Venn: “Wool pellets also act as a slow-release fertilizer, increase soil organic matter, reduce soil compaction (by increasing soil pore space through that expansion and contraction), and repel bugs and slugs.”

Osborn adds that, “Wool pellets could be an excellent alternative to peat moss.

“Peat moss is effective, but extractive, and peat bogs are crucial parts of an ecosystem. Wool is being grown all the time, and currently is just being thrown away.”

Further, Munn-Venn says that wool could be “part of the climate solution. There are so many places we use synthetics where wool could be the alternative. Processing (wool products) produces few greenhouse gases (GHGs) and wool itself can sequester GHGs.

“It’s a circular product that can stay local. Sheep eat grass to grow wool, then the wool can be used to grow vegetation. This prioritizes local biomass being kept in local areas.”

On the surface, it seems like wool pellets are an easy, obvious answer to so many potential problems.

So what stops everyone from using wool pellets as a soil amendment?

“Lack of knowledge,” says Maksymiuk. “It’s another expense, and people can be hesitant to take a chance. It feels like a new and scary option, working against so many other options that people know about – like peat moss – that everyone has been using forever. They feel safer using the old methods. I’m finding that people are opening up to the new ideas, and willing to try more, as more people are using it.”

Osborn agrees. “Lack of education. When I say ‘I process wool,’ the first thing you think of is yarn.

“People don’t know anything about wool products, but once they see how much water wool holds compared to peat moss, there is no comparison. The people – the gardeners and the farmers – need to see it before they’ll trust it, though.”

The education around wool is coming. Munn-Venn is a representative of the Canadian Wool Collective, “a grassroots-registered nonprofit with a mission to promote wool as a valuable renewable commodity in Canada.” It started as monthly coffeehouse chats and was registered as a national nonprofit in 2023.” Have questions about what to do with your wool? Look no further than the Canadian Wool Collective.

As always, too, money talks for all involved in the pelleting process. Maksymiuk supplies mostly to gardeners because “the cost of production is just too high for the amount that is needed for a conventional-sized farm.”

Unfortunately, as it stands right now, wool pellets as a soil amendment product are only cost-effective on small scales. It could be cost-prohibitive for a crop farmer to add a meaningful amount of wool pellets onto their fields, although Osborn would love to partner with a crop farmer and try it out.

“We need more research and more data to prove that these wool products can truly work as a soil amendment. Just imagine what wool pellets could do to the tops of knolls where the organic matter is low and water is the limiting yield factor.”

The other side to pelleting is the “uncertainty of markets for starting pelleting. Pelleting is an old process, and wool is, well, wool, yet there are conversations on patenting certain pelleting processes. Can you patent a technology that is hundreds of years old? I don’t know, but it’s certainly a concern to someone considering importing equipment from another country,” says Osborn.

Maksymiuk agrees, and understands why people might be wary of getting into this particular business. “I got my equipment from Europe. There are some available in the States, but I’m not aware of a Canadian supplier. It’s an expense, for sure. You need the time to run the equipment and you need to market your products, and then actually sell them.”

Osborn is hopeful and optimistic about the future of the wool market in Canada. “Wool is not worthless; it might just call for some creativity and you know who’s great at finding creative solutions? Farmers. Wool pellet mills can successfully run as a small-scale business that doesn’t need much infrastructure.

“My dream would be to see a wool pellet mill every 100 kilometres. That way, smaller communities would share the costs and the success.”

Osborn’s dream is broader and more complex than just community economy.

“Wool products can build rural resilience. Economically and socially, most pellet mills are small women-owned-and-ran businesses and have a conscientiousness that just doesn’t seem to exist in large businesses.”

For Osborn, the access that sheep can grant women in agriculture is crucial. “There is a reason they were domesticated. You’ll always win in a disagreement with a sheep.” On top of that, Osborn loves their versatility.

“Sheep are the only animal that can house, clothe, and feed you, and you can still have that original animal.” Cows are more popular here in Canada, with an estimated 3.5 million dairy and beef cattle across the country. Sheep are a fraction as compared, with an estimated one million animals across the country, but worldwide, “sheep are a popular livestock animal.

“Everyone needs to make a living, but, in the words of Marshall Goldsmith, ‘what got us here won’t get us there.’ We can’t keep going the way we are. At this rate, what’s the future going to look like?”

Osborn laughs as she says, “Sheep can save the world. It sounds crazy, but I mean it.” BF