Harvesting in Idaho’s Mountains and at the Ecuador Farm
Young Living members experience the Seed to Seal® process during the harvest and distillation of oils such as Idaho Balsam Fir and Idaho Blue Spruce at the 2014 Winter Harvest in St. Maries, Idaho.
Here are some of the people who made this year’s distillation of our beautiful Idaho Blue Spruce essential oil possible. We did it in an entire month of distilling and pulling samples every 15 minutes and analyzing them until we knew where we needed to be. Every 15 minutes. That’s why I built the lab in St. Maries, because we’re going to continue growing there. I need to analyze the oil and in an hour and a half have the results so that I know what I need to do. The year before last, I didn’t have a lab in St. Maries, so I had to send the oils FedEx to Utah and wait to get the results back to determine when we should distill next. There is so much to this that people don’t know and understand. What is the proper cutting time? What’s the drying time? Maturing time?
Gary is standing next to dorado azul that he discovered and tested. It is now growing on the Young Living farm in Ecuador.
Here’s dorado azul that I investigated back in 2008 as I started really looking at its chemistry and what values it has. When I looked at the compounds, I knew I wanted this plant. I learned the differences between when it’s distilled dry and when it’s distilled green. Just a one-week difference in the harvesting and distillation, and you will see variances in the compounds there.
So does it make a difference when you cut? Absolutely. How do I know? Because I do it. I don’t just talk about it, I do it.
Then there is Mastrante. A new oil that you’re going to have one day soon. Beautiful! Oh, my goodness. I’ve been developing this plant for four years. Our field is growing and expanding, and we’re almost there. Again, we study the different distillation times and the different drying times to see when the right time is because Mastrante had never been distilled until I distilled it. We have to learn.
