Central Otago farmer finds paddocks improve when wool is added to soil

Workers from Tinwald Farm after spreading wool over a degraded paddock. Photo / RNZ, Tinwald Farm

By RNZ

A Central Otago farmer is spreading wool over degraded paddocks to see if it improves soil quality.

Amanda Currie runs Tinwald Farm, a regenerative sheep and beef operation that also has grape vines about 15km north of Cromwell.

Currie said despite getting special certification for her wool, the price she had paid for it didn’t cover the cost of shearing.

So she began putting wool under her vines six years ago and it’s had great benefits.

“Initially, we used it as a weed suppressant, but we found it actually delivered some better value in terms of the nutrients that it slowly delivered to those plants as the wool broke down.

“Not only that, the temperature of the ground beneath the wool was maintained at a fairly even temperature over the growing season.”

Currie said the vineyard she supplied grapes to noticed a difference in quality and another grower has asked for wool to do the same.

“Look, that just got us thinking,” she said.

“I just wonder if there’s any value in putting wool down on a really rubbish paddock and seeing what it does to that.

“Some of these paddocks that we’ve got, they’re really what I would describe as quite gnarly.

“The plant spacing is quite wide, so there’s a lot of bare ground beneath the plants, and with the wind and the sun, it’s just a disaster for the wee microbes that are trying to do anything underneath that soil surface.”

She explored options for spreading the wool before opting to get the vineyard staff to spread it by hand.

“We walked around one day and shook it out and we’re just gonna monitor and see how it goes.

“We think if it works, that it’s probably better value for us to add those nutrients to our own soil than to sell the wool down the road for next to nothing.”

Currie said with the wool going under the vines and now on paddocks, she used 100% of her flock’s wool on farm.

– RNZ