Montana State University launches a new Wool Lab to revive an old industry

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On a hot August afternoon, wool expert Brent Roeder strode among sheep, combing his fingers through their fleece to assess color, length and uniformity. Roeder, an extension specialist at Montana State University, tends to the college-owned flock at an old off-campus cavalry barracks called the Fort Ellis Research and Teaching Farm. The flock exists to give agriculture students hands-on experience. That includes learning how to raise high-quality sheep for sales like the one in Miles City that Roeder plans to take six animals to this September.

“You’re taking your best of your best,” Roeder said.

Roeder is on a mission to revitalize the regional wool industry. He manages the university’s new Wool Lab, a facility dedicated to making wool production more efficient and more profitable for Montana’s sheep ranchers. He has spent a lifetime watching synthetic fiber undermine demand for wool. Now, Roeder hopes the new facility can show students “why the wool industry is still important and relevant.”

“I’m a little gray-haired. Finding this next generation was part of the investment in this lab, to be able to teach that next generation so they could innovate,” Roeder said.

The new building opened in July. The on-campus facility also contains the Montana Department of Livestock’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab and the Montana Department of Agriculture’s Analytical Lab. The Wool Lab cost about $10 million, funded by a combination of legislative appropriations and donations from private industry.

The Wool Lab’s previous home, located about a mile from the new one, dates back to the 1940s. The Montana Legislature first approved funding for that lab in 1945, when the industry was mid-boom after years of substantial government subsidies for the wool industry during World War II. In the mid-twentieth century, wool labs were common at land-grant universities. But today, the only similar facility outside of Bozeman is at Texas A&M, according to Roeder.

The disappearance of wool labs tracks with the wool industry’s slow and steady decline. Over the last 80 years, the U.S. sheep herd has decreased by 90%. That’s partly driven by rising agricultural input costs, regional drought and an increase in imported lamb.

Montana has not been immune to the squeeze. Over the last 30 years, in-state wool production has dwindled by two-thirds, and sheep-ranching operations have declined by half. As of 2024, Montana was home to about 190,000 sheep and about 1,100 wool operations.

Synthetic fabric has overwhelmed the market share that wool once ruled, according to Roeder.

“It’s really only been over the last 70 or 80 years that synthetics have come in. And they’ve completely dominated the whole fabric manufacturing system,” Roeder said.

So Roeder has aligned himself with the natural-fiber industry, which includes cotton and wool-based clothes. He decries synthetic clothing’s environmental cost — it’s made from fossil fuels, releases microplastics when washed and doesn’t biodegrade — and describes natural products as more comfortable to wear.

“I’m not against plastic or the oil industry, because I have a lot of friends in that industry, but maybe we shouldn’t be making $5 plastic shirts and importing them from China,” Roeder said.

Roeder wants the Wool Lab to innovate cheaper ways to produce and process wool. Montana ranchers help steer the direction of the lab’s research. Every two years, 25 sheep producers come to campus to grade Roeder’s work.

Those assessments aren’t public. But Stefanie Leach, executive assistant with the Montana Wool Growers Association, which wrote a $100,000 check for the new lab, told Montana Free Press the facility is doing necessary work.

“Without the research there, our industry stays stagnant. Without them doing research, we have no new innovation,” Leach said.

One way the lab hopes to boost the regional market is by helping ranchers breed animals that produce wool that can be worn comfortably next to human skin. That requires that wool fibers be less than 30 microns (0.001 inches) thick. Next-to-skin wool doesn’t itch. And most of the country’s domestic supply of next-to-skin wool comes from Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Montana, according to Leach.

Becky Weed, a sheep rancher near Belgrade who utilized Wool Lab resources during her early days in the business in the 1980s, said modern ranchers don’t just need help producing a particular grade of wool — they need help processing and selling it. She said the market was different when she got into the wool industry four decades ago.

“The mainstream wool growers at that time weren’t paying as close attention to what happened to their fiber, who was using it, who was marketing it, and how much they were getting paid for their wool,” Weed said.

But that changed as the industry shrank. Now, sheep ranchers have to be more intentional, Weed said.

She said she’s glad the Wool Lab is getting “a shot in the arm” and praised Roeder as “a real leader amongst the wool growers.”

Roeder said conditions for wool producers are improving — the commodity price has doubled in the last two years and is currently at a six-year high — but the industry still suffers from years of economic neglect.

“We have not had enough profitability in the industry for so long, there’s been no investment in facilities, structures, new barns and handling equipment. There just wasn’t the revenue to do it,” Roeder said.

As Roeder herded and handled sheep at the Fort Ellis farm, he wore a hat decorated with an American flag in the shape of a lamb, a token of thanks from the Teton County Fair, where he’s spent more than a decade helping 4H participants raise and show their sheep and goats. His belt buckle, emblazoned with “Texas A&M,” commemorates his 1993 championship in intercollegiate wool judging.

He said he’s confident the wool industry isn’t going anywhere, and that a next generation of Montana sheep ranchers has plenty to learn, and to teach.

“Don’t ever put your fingers inside,” Roeder said, dropping his hand between a sheep and the pen’s metal railing. He pulled away just before the animal’s head butted the rail where his fingers had been.

“That’s instinct,” he said.

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This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.