MSU's Roeder talks wool research in Time magazine article

BOZEMAN, MT., February 27, 2025 - Montana State University’s leading wool and sheep expert was featured recently in Time magazine, highlighting ongoing work to explore novel uses for wool.

Brent Roeder, MSU Extension sheep specialist and a faculty member in the College of Agriculture’s Department of Animal and Range Sciences, appeared in Time magazine in the article, “Farmers are Using Wool to Save Water in the Drought-Ridden West,” published Dec. 23. The story highlights wool producers and scientists who are advancing knowledge and developing products that capitalize on wool’s ability to retain water and its high nitrogen content.

Roeder said the real story, is that of Albert Wilde, a sixth-generation sheep rancher in Utah, and his interest in adding value to waste wool. According to Lindsey B. King’s reporting, Wilde knew wool retained water, a piece of knowledge that helped him keep his wife’s houseplants from drying while the family was away by soaking wool and placing clumps in the pots.

An entrepreneur with several businesses, Wilde operated a pelleting press and attempted pressing waste wool into pellets, knowing he had no good avenue through which to market that wool.

“He did and it worked really well, and he holds a U.S. patent for using wool as a fertilizer and soil amendment,” Roeder said.

The reason he patented it in the U.S. is he immediately had interest from foreign countries and several companies that offered to purchase the company and even offers to supply wool to him below market value to compete with domestic companies.

Roeder said he recalls tales of his great-grandparents plowing waste wool into fields during the Dust Bowl era to retain moisture and hold soil so when TikTok influencers began posting wool as a replacement for synthetic fertilizers, to save water, and as a replacement for peat moss, he knew it was a nod to generational knowledge.

Roeder said Wilde is currently working with a greenhouse company that is studying the use of wool pellets in starting tomato and pepper seedlings for commercial sale.

“They did a series of studies, not published data, but in-house, and discovered that if they put 5% by volume of wool pellets in their starter soil, they were cutting the grow time from seed set to sale height by a large amount,” he said.

Roeder and others from MSU visited the Wilde operation and wrote about the potential for marketing wool pellets. He said there are millions of pounds of low-value wool sitting in storage around the country, but the pelleting process is relatively expensive.

“You’re taking something that’s basically worthless, and by the time you process it, you’ve got quite a bit of money in it,” he said.

Roeder said he and other researchers wondered if the wool could be applied to the cold, low organic matter soils in Montana on a field on a sandy, silty-type soil. That research, he said, is what he contributed to the Time article.

One MSU project that will aim to quantify the impact of wool pellets on crop production and water retention on large Montana farms in cooperation with six growers. Roeder said funding depends on grants in part, so that could affect the timeline but he’s hopeful that the research will begin in the coming months.

“That’s our mission with our new wool research lab we’re building at MSU,” he said. “It’s not the first project it’s going to do, but we want to really kickstart the research moving into that. We have $600,000 of grant requests out there.”

The current lab has served the industry for 75 years, and he anticipates a great improvement in the contributions the new lab with updated capabilities can make. MSU broke ground on the facility in May and anticipates opening in 2026. The facility will house three agricultural laboratories conducting research and analysis for Montana producers. The facility will house the Montana Department of Livestock’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, the Montana Department of Agriculture’s Analytical Lab and Montana State University’s Wool Lab.

MSU’s Wool Lab, which has been housed on the MSU campus since 1947, conducts analysis and research on wool fiber and sheep genetics to ensure that Montana wool producers can remain competitive and to maximize wool quality.

The Montana Department of Livestock’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab is an accredited facility that supports veterinarians, agricultural producers and wildlife managers by monitoring and testing for zoonotic diseases and ensuring the quality and safety of animal products such as milk and eggs. The Montana Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Analytical Lab tests feed and fertilizer samples to ensure correct labeling of ingredients and tests groundwater to prevent seepage of pesticides and fertilizers into Montana groundwater. 

“I tell people we were amazed by wool for 9,970 years,” he said. “The sheep goes out and grazes grass and weeds and grows wool, we harvest it, it grows back, and it has really amazing qualities for clothing.”

Natural fibers, which biodegrade in a year and are truly sustainable, have been hindered by synthetic materials like polyester, that he said requires hundreds of years to degrade and contributes to water pollution. Though the demand for wool clothing remains, the market for tags and bellies – low value wool – has become nearly non-existent.

Though consumers have, since the 1970s, gone away from purchasing American made clothing, he said a return to wool clothing is a positive move and he said he looks forward to learning how the Trump administration will incentivize domestic production.

Source: Rachel Gabel, The Fence Post Magazine and Western Ag Network