Washington’s mint crop keeps world smelling fresh

Published 8:46 pm Monday, June 15, 2009

KENNEWICK — Like many crops in the Mid- Columbia, mint season is a little behind schedule this year because of the cool spring.

But it’s catching up fast with the recent heat, helping Washington maintain its position as the country’s top producer of the plants’ oil that helps make breath minty fresh worldwide.

“The Columbia Basin and Yakima Valley have the ideal climate,” said Jim Kassebaum, chairman of the Washington Mint Commission and a longtime mint farmer from Outlook.

Spearmint, both native and Scotch, and peppermint are the main species produced in Eastern Washington.

In 2008, the state produced more than 1.9 million pounds of peppermint oil and nearly 1.8 million pounds of spearmint oil. One pound equals about a pint and packs a punch. About 12,500 sticks of gum can be flavored from a pound of mint oil, or 1,000 tubes of toothpaste, according to the commission.

It’s the fresh scent that Kassebaum likes about the crop. “I love the smell, always have,” he said.

Kassebaum and about 40 others in the mint industry recently convened at Washington State University Prosser’s Irrigated Agriculture Research &Extension Center to learn about threats to mint plants, such as controlling harmful pathogens, different irrigation techniques and more.

It was a chance for hands-on updates on the latest research.

Dennis Johnson, WSU plant pathologist, talked about rotating crops with mint to help control a disease called Verticillium wilt.

And at a test plot full of mint plants, Troy Peters and Romulus Okwany explained the results they discovered from using different amounts of water on the plants.

Harold Sealock, a mint farmer near Toppenish, attended the event. He was particularly interested in the research on deficit irrigation.

“We were getting into that in drought years and we could see that it really didn’t hurt our mint,” Sealock said.

Hearing about the latest research from WSU was educational, he said, adding the researchers are always helpful when it comes to pest and weed problems.

Sealock’s 300 acres of native spearmint likely will be harvested about five days behind schedule because of the weather, he said. He’s planning to get out the swather on June 27.

The crop is cut similar to hay and left alone for anywhere from two to five days, Kassebaum said, to let it cure.

Then it gets put into tubs and steamed to release the oils, which become vapor.

The steam runs through a condenser that returns it to liquid form, then the oil gets separated from the water.

About half the oil produced in Washington state and across the country is exported, said Rod Christensen, executive director of the Kennewick-based mint commission.

Last year, more than 2.3 million pounds of spearmint oil was exported from the U.S., according to the Department of Commerce.

Canada and Mexico are the top two importers of U.S-produced mint oil, Christensen said.

The U.S. also imports oil, mostly from China and India, that gets mixed with the U.S. oil and then is exported, he said. That lowers the cost of the oil, Christensen said, because U.S. oil is higher quality.

The market is a little slow right now, he said, partly because of the economy. But this time of year typically is slow because buyers are waiting on the new crop to be harvested, he said.

The concept of just-in-time buying, when mint oil users order just enough for their current needs and don’t keep large inventories in stock, also has slowed orders for oil, Christensen said.

“In the long run, they end up buying as much as they’ve always bought, but there’s a lag of activity at the producer level while inventories at the end-user level get used up,” he said.

Despite the lull, prices look strong. Many contracts are at the $20 level, Christensen said.

Last year’s price for Washington spearmint oil was $15.20 per pound and it likely will stay there or rise, he said.

“What remains to be seen is the spot market, what’s going to happen to the uncontracted oil,” he said.

Though peppermint acreage has declined in the past two years, Christensen suspects it will rise again this year because prices are stronger.

Peppermint last year grew on about 16,000 acres, down from 23,000 acres in 2007, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Spearmint acreage continued to rise to more than 13,000 acres last year, up from 12,700 in 2007 and 11,500 in 2006.

The plants on those acres love sunshine and likely will afford farmers a good year, particularly if the heat continues, Christensen said.