Characteristics of wool raw materials in the Southern Federal District

Abstract

Relevance. Sheep wool is one of the types of products that requires high energy costs of feed. Therefore, sheep breeding should be based in regions that allow for their soil and climate conditions to contain animals of this type with the lowest material costs. One of these regions of the Russian Federation is the southern Federal district. Assessment of the state of fine wool production in the region makes it possible to develop a science-based strategic program for managing this process, which can be universal and used in relation to other territories. This is the relevance of our research.Methods. Analytical, statistical, computational, and biometric research methods were used for their implementation.Results. As a result, it was found that there is currently a certain stagnation in the production of Merino wool in the Southern Federal District. Therefore, additional means of regional and federal support are needed to encourage producers to increase the number of sheep that produce uniform wool. Certification of wool based on methods consistent with international standards of the IWTO countries in this territory revealed a number of qualitative features of the raw materials produced. The largest share in the structure of produced wool — 79–93% — is occupied by raw materials with a diameter of the cross section of the fibers of 20.6–23.0 microns. Very insignificant is volume of wool diameter of the cross section of the fibers less than 20.5 microns — less than 1%. It is produced only in the Rostov region. It was also established that the share of wool with contamination by easily-and difficult-to-separate impurities at the level of 1.5–2% is from 38 to 100% of the produced wool in different regions of the district. The authors propose a system of complex selection and technological techniques to improve the quality of fine wool produced.