Nebraska Couple Grows Irrigated Peppermint

Nebraska Couple Grows Irrigated Peppermint CROPS New Techniques Every August there’s a unique aroma around the Fitts farm in the Nebraska panhandle not far from Scottsbluff That’s when Dan Fitts and his wife Becky are harvesting 33 acres of peppermint and processing it into valuable oil that eventually makes its way into toothpaste and other consumer products “We acquired this operation from the fellow who started it on land he’d rented from us and so far it’s working quite well ” says Becky “It’s a good companion crop to the sugar beets dry edible beans and corn on our farm ” Becky Fitts explains that peppermint isn’t grown from seeds like other crops they raise “It’s a high input crop that’s grown from roots that come from a nursery Roots cost about $7 000 for one acre and then we expand one acre to 10 by transplanting the roots There’s also the cost for 300 lbs of N fertilizer per acre per year plus weed control On the plus side a new stand should last at least 7 years if it’s well taken care of ” she adds Nitrogen is applied during the growing season with the water used in flood irrigation “If the plants get dry they stop growing and set seeds which we don’t want to happen ” says Dan noting that the oil is in the leaves The other big hazards are hail which can decimate the growing plants and a big rainstorm in August that might wash oil off the leaves “We get hail around here somewhere every year and the peppermint is high risk because we won’t be able to get insurance coverage until next year We need 4 years of crop proof to file for insurance ” Dan says Peppermint is harvested like a forage crop They swath it during dry weather in mid-August let it cure for a day or so then chop it with a forage harvester and blow it into enclosed wagons called mint tubs Steam is injected into the sealed tubs to produce mint vapor which is collected from the top of the tubs and piped back to a home-built still mounted on a semi-trailer Becky says they use about 500 gals of diesel a day producing steam for the tubs and moving it back to the still through condensers and separators In the final step oil floats to the top and is siphoned off into 55-gal galvanized drums The remaining ‘sludge’ in the tubs is composted and spread back on fields as fertilizer “Our crop is producing about 80 to 85 lbs of oil per acre ” says Dan “and we’d like to improve that up to 100 or more which is what farmers are getting in Idaho ” Oil prices fluctuate and Becky says a 55 gal drum in the spring of 2020 would bring about $7 000 Dan says one unique aspect of peppermint is that once oil is placed in the stainless drums it stores well and doesn’t age The family sells their production to Labeemint a processor in Nampa Idaho that produces mint flavoring for toothpaste manufacturers “It’s a management intensive crop where we strive for the highest quality oil through careful fertility and timely harvesting ” Fitts says They hope to expand their acres once they’re able to insure the crop Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Dan Fitts 160529 County Road 29 Gering Neb 69341 Danfitts4@hotmail com

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