Experience with sheep wool pellets?

I've come across these wool pellets and am keen to try them out.


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Made from reject and dirty sheep fleeces, they are supposed to provide slow release nutrients and buffer moisture in the soil. If added as a surface mulch they can insulate the soil from temperature extremes (both hot and cold) and (most interesting to me!) can act as a slug deterrent! I think the moisture buffering could be useful too; my soil tends to be too wet, so something that holds onto the excess moisture without flooding the soil would be good. The moisture retention is supposed to be particularly useful to improve the texture of sandy soils though.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried them and has any tips for application, or feedback on how effective they were? How thick a layer would I need?

Taking a look at them, I have to be honest I thought they were alfalfa pellets!

I'd be curious to see what the pellet does when exposed to water. It doesn't look like wool, but I wonder if it plumps up? Maybe they shred the wool somehow and bind it together?

I have loads of questions, I hope some others chime in with their observations.

Timothy Norton wrote:I'd be curious to see what the pellet does when exposed to water. It doesn't look like wool, but I wonder if it plumps up? Maybe they shred the wool somehow and bind it together?

I found this video, which shows that you sprinkle them around and then they expand to form a mat which the slugs don't like to crawl over.

Timothy Norton wrote:Taking a look at them, I have to be honest I thought they were alfalfa pellets!

I'd be curious to see what the pellet does when exposed to water. It doesn't look like wool, but I wonder if it plumps up? Maybe they shred the wool somehow and bind it together?

I have loads of questions, I hope some others chime in with their observations.

We have around 30 million sheep in this country (5M humans, for perspective). Since the market for wool is so miserable these days, but the sheep still need to be shorn, farmers are always looking for more outlets for the product. For many years we've been able to get bags of dags (the dangly dingelberries on the east end of a westbound sheep that has digestive issues) at the garden centres. Usually it's just powdered dry dags, but some enterprising merchants started putting the stuff through extruders. The binder is the sheep shit.

Makes a much more user-friendly product, as you can see above. They hold together as long as they're dry, but as soon as you water them they turn to damp fluff. Superb nutrient profile, not too heavy on the N for flowering and fruiting plants, and easy to use.

Thank you for the interest everybody! We power our entire farm with wool pellets. It makes an ideal base fertilizer. Especially if you are just beginning to build your soil fertility.

I'll be around to answer any questions anyone has about using wool for growing applications.

I'm really happy with the wool pellet samples I got so far. My wool protected Hosta shoots are showing up with no slug damage - whoopee! I'm looking forwards to seeing if I can protect my carrot seedlings too, nearly time for sowing those now.

I've known for some time, about using wool (particularly the skirted portions) in compost, but haven't done it, because unless the time is taken to cut it up finely, it can be difficult to turn the compost. So, it would, at least theoretically, be much less labor intensive to simply put it directly into the garden. But, I've seen just how long it can take to break down the fibers, done that way. Do the pellets break down and become accessible to the plants substantially faster, or is it just the other matter that was trapped in the matted fibers that breaks down, faster, and the actual wool still breaks down fairly slowly? I guess what I'm actually asking is do the pellets act like a time-release fertilizer? Or, because they're pelletized, do they break down at a more even rate?

Carla Burke wrote:I've known for some time, about using wool (particularly the skirted portions) in compost, but haven't done it, because unless the time is taken to cut it up finely, it can be difficult to turn the compost. So, it would, at least theoretically, be much less labor intensive to simply put it directly into the garden. But, I've seen just how long it can take to break down the fibers, done that way. Do the pellets break down and become accessible to the plants substantially faster, or is it just the other matter that was trapped in the matted fibers that breaks down, faster, and the actual wool still breaks down fairly slowly? I guess what I'm actually asking is do the pellets act like a time-release fertilizer? Or, because they're pelletized, do they break down at a more even rate?

Hi Carla, I can confirm it acts like a slow-release fertilizer. How fast it breaks down is related to your soil biology and moisture levels. My older beds, it takes 2 months to break them down. In new beds, it takes about 5 months. The reason pellets break down faster than raw unprocessed wool is the same reason your food processes faster in your stomach when you chew, rather than swallow whole. The pelletizing machine steams the wool to 160ºF +, then grinds it and then forces it through a die. Basically chewing the wool. This pre-processing in the pellet making process allows the biology to break the wool down faster.

Excellent information, E! Thank you!

I do have another question, though. I saw in another thread that it's great for sandy soils, but what about clay soil? Mine is heavy, red clay, with tons of rocks in many sizes (I'm in the Missouri Ozarks). I've all but given up on ever having good soil for planting directly into the ground, in favor of raised beds, for most of my planting. But, some things don't lend themselves well to raised beds and containers - like trees or even bushes. Would the pellets turn my clay into soil deeply enough, simple turning, but without tilling, to plant things like hazelnuts or blueberries, within say a year or two? If there's even a chance of that, how much of the pellets would you recommend for improving say, a 3ftx3ft spot, for a single, medium to large bush (like a hazel or blueberry)?

Carla Burke wrote:Excellent information, E! Thank you!

I do have another question, though. I saw in another thread that it's great for sandy soils, but what about clay soil? Mine is heavy, red clay, with tons of rocks in many sizes (I'm in the Missouri Ozarks). I've all but given up on ever having good soil for planting directly into the ground, in favor of raised beds, for most of my planting. But, some things don't lend themselves well to raised beds and containers - like trees or even bushes. Would the pellets turn my clay into soil deeply enough, simple turning, but without tilling, to plant things like hazelnuts or blueberries, within say a year or two? If there's even a chance of that, how much of the pellets would you recommend for improving say, a 3ftx3ft spot, for a single, medium to large bush (like a hazel or blueberry)?

Great question! I don't have first hand experience, but I do read good things about people using them in clay soils. Because it functions like temporary peat moss until it breaks down, I would just caution against using them in areas where you have poor drainage. This is because they hold water really well. If you already have a decent amount of organic matter in your clay soil, wool pellets should complement that and improve aeration. New beds in clay soil may want to add some calcium product like gypsum to floculate the clay first before mixing in compost and wool pellets.

One last thing to consider is clay soils often have a high cation exchange. In soils with high cation exchange, you typically can benefit from a faster fertilizer or use less wool pellets because you don't have as much nutrient leaching problems like in sandy soils. I hope that helps. If you try some, let me know how it works for you!

Thank you so much, E! I have small numbers of livestock (23 chickens, 10 ducks, 9 fiber/dairy Nigora goats, and a pair of Babydoll sheep), so more than enough fertilizer to go around on our little farm, and lots of eggshells to grind for calcium. And, I'll look up the cation info, for my area (that's a new term, for me!). Our topography is all ridges & ravines, so combined with the rocky clay, one of our other biggest issues is erosion, because there's as much runoff as there is absorption, but puddles don't typically last more than a few hours, even after a few days of hefty rainfall. It's good then, to know that any pellets I add will help keep more of the water available to the growies.