AWI sets sights on 2028 roll out of wool bio-harvesting technology for growers

AWI national extension manager Emily King, Dubbo, New South Wales, said the organisation is working as hard as it possibly can to make the long-discussed innovation a reality for Australian wool growers.

Speaking to ACM Agri, at the BestWool/BestLamb conference in Ballarat last week, she said the technology should cost a similar amount as traditional shearing.

"That's a really strong focus of ours," she said.

"We think for this to be commercially viable, it needs to be around shearing price or less.

"We are hoping to be around that price point or less if we can but there will also be other quality aspects that should improve [bio-harvested wool's] value."

She said these quality aspects included there being no skin pieces in the wool and no second cuts.

Ms King was joined by University of Adelaide researcher Dr Sarah Weaver at the event to outline the latest on bio-harvesting trials and engineering prototypes.

The duo presented a timeline which suggested that farmers would be able to bio-harvest their wool on farms before the turn of the decade, as early as 2028.

Drug trials at the university were running in tandem with progress on the engineering of a wool bio-harvesting machine.

Ms King confirmed that four companies had been green-lit to progress their engineering prototypes last week.

They were selected from 14 proposals submitted from around the world and three of the four had signed contracts with AWI, as of last week.

She said their selection was based on factors including the readiness and potential cost of their equipment.

The contracted innovators have until the end of 2025 before their systems are ready to test on farms.

Wool bio-harvesting involved giving sheep a drug via injection to create a break in their wool fibre.

The sheep would then be left to grow a short protective fibre layer and then the 'weakened fleece' could be removed with little discomfort.

At present, Dr Weaver said her team was optimising their drug to find the exact compound that would be suitable for traditional Australian wool systems.

From late this year, the research team will determine the effects of the drug on different sheep breeds, types and in different regions.

This work was scheduled to continue until the end of 2027.

In the first half of 2025, the University of Adelaide team will engage in the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) drug approval process.

This process would examine any health, residual or safety risks with the wool bio-harvesting drug and it was hoped to be completed by the end of 2028 also.

However, Ms King said this APVMA approval was one of the "external factors" which would be out of their hands.

"You're registering what is effectively a new drug onto the market so it needs to go through that federal approval process," she said.

"A key part of that is getting the research and all the information to put approval into them and then that'll need to be accessed.

"They'll look at all the trial work to ensure that we've done what they deem as adequate to prove that the product is safe for both the animal and humans."

Ms King insisted the AWI was fully behind the university research team to get bio-harvesting technology rolled out to growers.

"The AWI board has been really committed to trying to get this moving as quickly as possible and the University of Adelaide research team is super-excited about this work as well," she said.

"We've got it hammering along as quickly as we possibly can."

Dr Weaver suggested it was about time for this type of innovation for wool growers.

She compared the industry to other types of agriculture where innovation and new technology had been racing ahead for years.

She said the new drug her team had developed to bio-harvest the wool didn't stop it from growing but simply made it easy to break.

"Instead of actually cutting the fibre, we actually just want to weaken it," she said, adding that this was "totally different" from a previously launched product, BioClip.

"The concept is we have a drug that we inject into sheep at day zero and then three to six weeks later, once that weak point in the fibre has occurred, that fibre continues to grow out far enough that it provides a cover over the animal to protect it from the elements.

"This allows the wool to continue to grow and provide a cover when we harvest it off."

Dr Weaver described how the drug was just like putting a "kink" in the wool fibre.

"When it's then put under pressure, it will actually break," she said.

She said trials showed that even the weakened wool wasn't weak enough to be lost in the paddock, against fences or around the paddock.

She said this was something farmers were originally concerned about.

"There was no difference in wool loss between animals that had been treated and those who hadn't," she said.

Dr Weaver said a wool strength test was carried out on treated sheep where their wool was pulled and their reducing discomfort recorded.

She said the drug reduced discomfort to the point where the wool could be removed without it being a welfare issue.