The stuff of socks, sweaters and high-tech underwear now has yet another use, according to a Montana State University study: revegetating roadsides to prevent erosion.
At a road cut along Highway 287 near Three Forks, Mont., healthy patches of native grasses are a testament to the lasting benefits of using wool, said Rob Ament, a research scientist at the Western Transportation Institute in MSU's Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering.
When Ament's research team began the project four years ago, they suspected that wool might have advantages over the straw and shredded coconut hull used in traditional erosion control blankets, which buffer slopes against sun and rain until seeds germinate and plants take hold. The results of the recently concluded study, however, surprised him.
"We were astonished by the vigorous plant growth," Ament said during a recent visit to the site.
At the square-meter plots that received erosion blankets made of wool blended with straw, the team observed three to four times more perennial grasses - a result Ament called "stunning."
Eli Cuelho, a former research engineer at WTI, also contributed to the project, as did Stuart Jennings and Monica Pokorny at KC Harvey Environmental, a Bozeman-based consulting firm specializing in reclamation. Pokorny, who now works as a plant materials specialist at the Bozeman office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, worked with Ament to develop the wool products and conduct the field trials.
Revegetating disturbed ground along roadsides is required by various laws to prevent takeover by noxious weeds and runoff of sediment, which can harm fish and other aquatic life, and it also contributes to the longevity of the roadbed by reducing pooling water, according to Phil Johnson. He oversaw roadside reclamation for the Montana Department of Transportation for 25 years before retiring in 2017. Johnson provided guidance for the project, which received an MDT grant, and was "very pleased," he said.
Prior to the experiment, MDT had seeded the road cut in a traditional manner with a seed drill. But the plants on the exposed, west-facing slope had difficulty surviving, and the agency recommended the road cut for the experiment, according to Ament.
"We picked a really harsh site," Ament said. "We didn't want it to be easy."
Some erosion-preventing wool products were available internationally, Ament said. But they were prohibitively expensive to ship and weren't designed specifically for revegetation. "We had to be creative and work with wool producers here in Montana," he said.
Ament and Pokorny traveled to three Montana mills and worked with them to produce shredded wool, which was then sent to a Minnesota manufacturer with the specialized equipment for blending the wool with straw to produce the erosion blankets. The researchers then seeded the Highway 287 road cut with native grasses and laid down the wool erosion blankets side by side with various other erosion blankets. They observed the site periodically and measured the growth of the grasses during the course of three years.
"We don't know what mechanisms, exactly, give wool an advantage," Ament said.
He suspects that the wool holds more moisture for a longer period. And wool, which is about 17 percent nitrogen, likely has a fertilizing effect on the plants as it slowly biodegrades. Ament said that wool also appears to adhere better to soil on steep embankments.
Ament noted that if wool were widely adopted for erosion control, it could support local manufacturing of the blankets as well as create a significant new market for Montana's wool growers. Low-grade wool that is otherwise discarded could potentially be used. The Food and Drug Administration’s day-long meeting in Washington, D.C., Thursday didn’t reach any conclusions, but most parties had their way over how the nascent lab-grown animal protein products industry should be regulated. Most, but not all. No USDA representatives were on the agenda, although they reportedly were in attendance. Over the course of the meeting, attendees got a short course in protein biochemistry, but much of the time was spent hearing arguments over how the technology should be regulated and by whom. To that end, Susan Mayne, director of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, made the point that, "This is not our first rodeo, so to speak, in this area." Representatives from Memphis Meats, Finless Foods and JUST (formerly Hampton Creek) generally favored FDA oversight, while those from the conventional meat industry, including Rhonda Miller, past president of the American Meat Science Association and a professor at Texas A&M University, insisted that the lab-grown products were subject to contamination from their ingredients and manufacturing processes, just like conventional meat under the oversight of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). “The samples of cultured tissue have not been available for evaluation of the safety, composition, nutritional bioavailability, functionality and sensory property to understand how it compares to meat from conventional animal production,” Miller said. Among the potential hazards are the unknown effects of temperature and time on lab-grown tissue, Ph, and water activity, she said. The industry doesn‘t know how cultured tissue reacts in different packaging environments, or what its shelf life is under various circumstances. Research has not yet been done on whether spoilage and the growth of pathogenic microorganisms process in the same way in cultured vs. conventionally derived meat products. In a statement, Danielle Beck, director of government affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said, “NCBA applauds the pointed questions FDA has posed regarding risks, hazards and manufacturing methods of lab-grown meat food products. However, the appropriate agency to ask the questions under discussion today is the agency that will ultimately have jurisdiction over lab-grown meat food products. Any fair reading of the law places lab-grown meat food products within the primary jurisdiction of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.” The National Pork Producers Council said in its statement that lab-cultured tissue should be the purview of FSIS, which would require that they “comply with the same regulatory standards, including continuous inspection, process controls, antemortem and postmortem inspection of source animals and other requirements, as conventionally produced red meat and poultry products.” The question is far from being resolved. The FDA is seeking public comment on the issues raised during the meeting through Sept. 25 at www.regulations.gov/.
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