Finding Innovative Ways to Use Wool

Due to oversupply and more demand for synthetic materials, the wool market remains weak, making it difficult for producers to move product into traditional markets such as fashion and textile production. To address the challenge, new technologies are being developed to pelletize wood for use as fertilizer. Travis Taylor, with the Golden Plains Area Colorado State University Extension, explains how this innovation could create new opportunities for wool producers.

“Some of our fellow extension colleagues have been working with a group down in that San Louis Valley area to take the wool and pelletize it, because it does have a fertilizing effect, because it's higher in protein, which gives us a little more nitrogen. Shoot there, but it also helps hold in in your garden, hold the water, and keep that moisture in there. So we've got an insulating effect from the wool as well as as it deteriorates, it releases nitrogen into the soil. So I think it's one of those ideas that may be able to lend them an all-natural product that can provide some health benefits to their gardening efforts across the state.”

Lower wool, lower wool prices are also being attributed to export markets that have not fully recovered since the COVID pandemic.