By Greg Booth

Cloquet, Minn. -- Consumers looking for natural, chemical-free beef can find it right here in Minnesota, says Mark Thell. The beef producer and president of Lake Superior Meats Cooperative has plans for a state-of-the-art processing facility that could handle 2,000 head of beef per year. With help from AURI, the 44-member cooperative is conducting a marketing study and is about to embark on a public stock offering that would add 30 to 50 new members.

"Consumers want that assurance that it's a chemical-free product -- no hormones, no antibiotics for the life of the animal," Thells says, adding that Lake Superior Meats is grass-fed and "the environment isn't being degraded by this product."

With a successful stock offering, Thell says groundbreaking for a northeast Minnesota processing facility could begin this fall, with the plant operating by next summer. The co-op received technical assistance from AURI's Crookston office and is exploring specialty products at AURI's meat laboratory in Marshall, including gourmet beef and wild rice patties and beef jerky.

For more information contact Jean Rock or Brent Sorenson at the AURI Northern Field Office in Crookston at 800-279-5010.

By E.M. Morrison

Morris, Minn. -- Could wool wipe out your garden weeds?

Researchers at the U of M West Central Experiment Station are testing a new garden mulch made from Minnesota-grown wool. The three-year project, funded by AURI, is evaluating wool's weed-control ability in annual flowers, young apple trees and strawberries. The inexpensive renewable resource may be an alternative to herbicides and plastic mulch.

For years, wool pads have been mopping up oil spills. So Bill Head, a U of M sheep scientist in Morris, and Bob Padula, a Chippewa County Extension educator, wondered if wool could be extended to other uses, such as landscaping material. "We were looking for a value-added wool product that wouldn't cost a ton of money" to manufacture, Head says.

Cream-colored sheets of washed wool act as a weed barrier, much like landscaping plastic. But unlike plastic, wool mulch is biodegradable, returning nutrients to the soil. And wool collects water, preventing runoff and retaining soil moisture. The mulch might be particularly useful for crops like strawberries, where herbicide use is restricted.

U of M scientists will evaluate the mulch's performance over the next three growing seasons, comparing wool in varying thicknesses with wood chips, plastic mulches and herbicides. Other tests will assess durability, nitrogen transfer and water capacity.

"Most Minnesota producers give their wool away now," Head says. He estimates that processing local wool into mulch could add 15 to 20 percent in value.

For more information contact Michael Sparby or Jody Koubsky at the AURI Central Field Office in Morris at (320) 589-7280.