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What does it take to patent fruits and vegetables?

Exporting produce from Washington to Mexico

The Wenatchee Valley pear pipeline is not slowing down

Games and puzzles related to this issue

Some of the most recognizable fruits and vegetables in the world are considered “intellectual property.”

Here’s a question: What do an iPad and a Cosmic Crisp have in common? While this might sound like the beginning of a dad joke (answer: “They’re both Apples!”), these two items are more similar than you’d think. Both the Apple iPad and the Cosmic Crisp apple are considered intellectual property, patented and protected by the U.S. government.

It might seem obvious why high-tech items like a tablet device would be patented and trademarked, but it’s also a common and long-lasting practice to claim intellectual property rights for new plant varieties like the Cosmic Crisp apple, which was patented in 2014 by Washington State University (WSU).

In 1887, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) created a new Division of Pomology — the science of growing fruits — as a result of the increase in new fruits and vegetables coming on the market. The division hired a team of illustrators to paint new varieties to add to its national register of plants and fruit, which was distributed in booklets to growers. (The USDA currently has a stunning collection of these illustrations on

its website; scan the QR code on page 4 to view them.)

In 1930, the U.S. passed the Plant Patent Act, which allowed growers to file for patents for new varieties under certain conditions. These patents last 20 years and allow the owner to essentially rent out the plants to farmers. Some patented crops in Washington include Walla Walla Sweet Onions, Cosmic Crisp apples, Cascade Harvest raspberries, and Chelan and Orondo Ruby cherries. In 2020, the U.S. granted 22 plant patents in Washington state, with 1,398 patents granted nationwide, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

“It’s really about a level of protection of intellectual property,” says Kate Evans, a plant breeder and professor in the Department of Horticulture at WSU. “So it enables the holder of the IP to have some level of control about where the variety is grown in the future.”

In the case of the Cosmic Crisp, the patent allows WSU to ensure seedlings are only available to growers in Washington state. Evans’ newest apple variety — WA 64 — has

In 1887, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Division of Pomology embarked on an ambitious project, hiring artists to render illustrations of fruit varieties. The project was essentially the first iteration of plant patenting. Per the USDA, “Use of color lithography was critically important to enable the farmer to visualize and comprehend the subjects and principles covered in a particular publication.”

As a historic botanical resource, this collection documented new fruit and nut varieties from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection spans the years 1886 to 1942. There are 7,497 watercolor paintings, 87 line drawings, and 79 wax models created by approximately 21 artists.

Use this QR code to view the entire collection of historical lithographs.

also gone through the patent application process and is awaiting its new name, which will be selected as part of a contest.

To receive a patent, the applicant must provide extensive information about all parts of the new plant, including measurements, descriptions of the leaves, flowers, fruit, and tree, and detailed images. If any information is missing — for example, a measurement of one of the flower’s internal organs — the growers will have to wait until the plant flowers again to get that data. The process can take years.

But before all of this — before the patent applications are submitted and the varieties are given jazzy new names — there is a grower or a team of researchers with a few seeds and a lot of patience.

The process of plant breeding is simply applying the scientific method to what already happens naturally: combining the pollen of one tree with the stigma of another in the same way that a honeybee would. In 1997, Bruce Barritt, a horticulturist who worked in WSU’s Pome Breeding Program, fertilized an Enterprise apple flower with pollen from a Honeycrisp, then planted the seeds and waited years for the seedlings to produce flowers. Each seedling was different, and the team went through a lengthy evaluation process to choose the best plant. The evaluation, testing, and selection process takes years and sometimes decades. Some of this involved observing the apples’ shelf life and doing tests in the lab, and some of it was just good old-fashioned taste testing.

“You just don’t know what any apple is going to taste like at any time,” said Evans. “There are fascinating flavors that pop up. Every tree is different — that sort of combination of the sugars and the acids, the slightly different aromas, and, obviously, the texture. But it’s not all great eating when you’re out with the seedlings.”

After the evaluation and selection process, WA 38 was chosen. This crunchy, sweet-tart apple’s dark red skin with small white dots eventually inspired its name, Cosmic Crisp. To produce more of this exact type of plant, the WSU team used vegetative propagation, using a bud from the WA 38 seedling and inserting it into a knot in a rooted rootstock. The little bud grew

into a scion, which became the trunk of a new tree.

In 2019, 22 years after the first pollination, the Cosmic Crisp apple finally became available in grocery stores. It was an instant hit, becoming one of the top 10 best-selling apples in the U.S. in 2023, according to WSU.

“Cosmic Crisp is the Beyoncé of apples,” wrote Cindy Hollenbeck on the WSU Foundation website, describing how the apple can stay fresh for a year in storage, ripens slowly on trees, and has a high sugar content and acidity, which is good for its shelf life.

While some patented plants came about after years of cultivation and selection, some others were discovered by a stroke of luck. Take, for example, the sweet, acidic Orondo Ruby cherry.

“They’re special,” said John Griggs, the CEO and general manager of Griggs Farms in Orondo. “It was just a chance mutation my dad saw driving around the blocks.”

Griggs’ dad, Marcus, noticed a tree in the orchard that had faster-maturing cherries that were sweeter and a different color than the others around it. He received a patent for this new variety, and the farm now has 80 acres dedicated to Orondo Rubies.

At the end of the day, all of this is really about producing crops that people love to eat. Evans says that while her job is a plant breeder, her passion is to be able to create new, improved, delicious fruits — and actually get people to eat them.

“Who doesn’t want to be helping the consumer improve their diet?” she said. “Encouraging people to eat apples? We’re about getting current consumers to eat more apples and also introducing apples to consumers who haven’t been eating apples before. You want something that tastes great!”

The Cosmic Crisp apple is one of the most recognizable fruit brands in the state. In Season 5, Kristi Gorenson and the Washington Grown crew visited Dr. Bruce Barritt (top left), the horticulturist who developed the Cosmic Crisp.

pear pipeline perfect the

PESHASTIN HI-UP GROWERS

Those fresh pears in the produce aisle rely on an entire supply chain working in sync. Farmers and processors like Peshastin Hi-Up Growers have gotten the process down to a science.

One hand picks the pear from the tree. Another efficiently and gently packs it into a padded box, and yet another loads those boxes onto a truck. A hand unloads the pear at the grocery store, arranging it into a neat green row. And finally, you hold the pear in your own hand to gauge its ripeness before setting it in your basket.

It’s easy to forget how many people carefully handle the food we eat, making sure a delicate, easily bruised pear is never damaged as it travels from the farm to the processing plant and all the way to the store, but it’s a great reminder of how interconnected we are (and, also, how it never hurts to wash your produce).

“It’s amazing, really, to think of all the labor and everything that goes into it, both in the orchard and in the packaging house,” said Shawn Cox, the general manager of Peshastin Hi-Up Growers, a family-owned business that grows, packages, and delivers 10 varieties of pears, including Golden Russet Bosc, Red Anjou, and Green Anjou.

“Pears often get overlooked,” said Cox. “It’s been a staple in households for a long time.”

The Washington Grown team visited Peshastin Hi-Up Growers in Season 11, on the first day the Anjou pears were being processed. The pears arrived at the packing shed after being handpicked in the fields. At the facility, they were sorted, weighed, and adorned with those little stickers we all recognize from the store.

“It’s what we call a PLU, but it’s a sticker on the pear that tells what size the pear is, and it’s scannable at the supermarkets,” said Cox.

When asked, Cox affirmed that the stickers are, in fact, food-safe, “but I wouldn’t eat them.”

The pears are separated by size and hand-packaged carefully by employees who place them in trays with pear-shaped divots, laying the trays between layers of padding in cardboard boxes. These pears will be sold in grocery stores around the country.

In another section of the facility, employees wrap each pear gently and quickly in paper and place them into cardboard boxes; these pears will be exported internationally. Cox pointed at a box of Anjou pears being loaded into a 30-degree storage warehouse, which will keep them fresh until spring.

“We’re basically putting those pears to sleep, and then we’ll be bringing them out and selling them all year round,” said Cox. “We can keep it in storage if we wrap it, and it tastes really good all year.”

Cox said Anjou pears store really well for a long amount of time, whereas Bartlett pears are only available from August through February.

After being carefully packaged, crates of fruit are loaded onto trucks, where they will be delivered across the continent. The pears

heading overseas to places like Vietnam or the Middle East are packed into a large shipping container, driven west, and loaded on a cargo ship leaving from the Port of Seattle.

Washington is the country’s top producer of fresh pears, and in 2023, farmers in the state grew 267,000 tons of the fruit, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But despite the fact that they’ve been grown in the U.S. since the late 1700s, Cox said he’s noticed a rise in interest recently, with younger generations being excited about pears again.

He emphasized that there’s a pear for every taste bud.

“I think that there’s enough pear varieties out there from the beginning to the end that you can find a pear that you like,” he said. “There’s a lot of different tastes and flavors and textures — so try a pear!”

Pear crates await their delicate cargo outside of the Peshastin HiUp Growers facility in Peshastin, in the Wenatchee River valley.

Find more great stories at wagrown.com

“Their family came to Red Mountain on a coin flip. But their success here has nothing to do with chance.”

Watch the show online or on your local station

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Mondays at 7:00 pm and Saturdays at 4:30 pm ksps.org/schedule/

“We've got a responsibility to take care of it for future generations.”

some hot like it

THE MANGO TREE SPOKANE

The Mango Tree is bringing the heat with fresh Indian dishes made with local Washington produce.

As the temperatures outside drop, the friendly faces at The Mango Tree have a tasty solution for you. Come in to any one of their five locations and order the Daal Makhani. Or the Tikka Masala. Or maybe the Chicken Korma. No matter what you choose, you’ll feel yourself warming up from your head to your toes.

“Indian spices warm from the inside,” said chef Rahul, when the Washington Grown crew visited the restaurant’s north Spokane location in Season 11.“You will not feel too ‘spicy’ in the mouth – you will feel warm on the inside. It’s hot food, but it’s comfort food.”

The Mango Tree has been specializing in accessible Indian cuisine since opening their first Pacific Northwest location in 2018. While many of the spices used in the kitchen are imported from India, many of the vegetables are grown locally in Washington.

“We twisted a little bit on the traditional style dishes,” said operating partner Hillary Yarno. “At first, people can be kind of scared if they’ve never had Indian food. But the food is phenomenal –we’re lucky enough to have some great chefs from India. The way we do things is a little different, but it works really well for this area.”

Those local ingredients include the bell peppers in

the aloo, the potatoes in the vindaloo, the cilantro in the curry, and the onions in … well, everything.

“We use so many onions!” said Yarno with a laugh. “We use onions in everything. And a ton of potatoes. Cilantro. The majority of our bases come from local ingredients like these.”

The end result of all those fresh and local ingredients is a menu filled with delicious comfort foods that still taste vibrant and fresh. Each main dish is served with fluffy rice and soft, buttery naan. Customers love the food and come back again and again.

“The food is delicious, it’s fresh, it has a lot of flavor,” said one customer, while another nodded in agreement. “You can tell its spicy, but it’s a ‘flavor’ hot, not a ‘I can’t taste my food’ type of hot.”

The Mango Tree has become a favorite in the Spokane area for experienced Indian food lovers and newcomers alike. The service staff takes pride in helping customers discover a new favorite dish whenever they get the chance.

“Most people either come in and know exactly what they want – they have no questions, they know,” said Yarno. “Or they come in kind of clueless, and we get to guide them through their experience here.”

Complexity:

Medium • Time: 1.5 hours • Serves: 6

This northern Indian dish is wonderful comfort food for an autumn evening! If you’re familiar with butter chicken, you can think of daal makhani as a vegetarian version of that dish – in fact “daal makhani” is roughly translated as “buttery lentils.” Serve with steamed basmati rice, alongside some delicious naan or roti.

Daal Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 lb dry beluga lentils

• 4 oz dry kidney beans

• 4 oz dry golden lentils

• 1/4 cup dried fenugreek

• 2 oz canola oil

• 1.5 tsp iodized salt

• 1.5 tsp ground turmeric

• 2 tsp ground coriander

• 1 tsp ground cumin

• 8 oz tomato paste

• 1 tsp garam masala

• 1/2 tsp minced ginger

• 1/2 tsp minced garlic

• 3 oz heavy cream

• 4 oz butter

• 8 oz chop masala

Soak dry lentils and kidney beans in cool water for at least 4 hours prior to cooking.

In a medium stock pot, bring 3 quarts of water to boil. Add the drained lentils and beans and cook until soft to the tooth – around 60 minutes. (Alternatively, you can cook them in an Instant Pot pressure cooker in around 30 minutes).

In a small bowl, combine the fenugreek with 1 cup of water and soak for 10 minutes.

In a medium stock pot, heat canola oil. Add salt, turmeric, coriander, and cumin. Heat for 2-3 minutes, being careful not to burn the spices.

Add tomato paste and drained fenugreek and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add drained beans and lentils and simmer for 20 additional minutes. This cooked lentil mixture is called “daal,” from which the dish gets its name. The daal can be used immediately or cooled and saved for later use.

Assembling the Daal Makhani

In a small stock pot, heat a small amount of canola oil over medium heat.

Add ginger and garlic to oil and soften for 2 minutes.

Add your daal mixture, along with garam masala and chop masala. Cook for 10 minutes until heated through and well incorporated.

Add heavy cream and butter. Stir until melted.

Serve with basmati rice. Garnish with ginger slivers and a swirl of cream.

The Mango Tree uses Palouse Brand lentils in all of their restaurants.

Makhani Daal Indian

FROM THE MANGO TREE

Washington’s PuzzleExport

In Washington, farmers produce far more food than our state — and even our country — could eat. For example, nearly 70% of potatoes are exported worldwide each year in the form of frozen french fries, as well as 30% of apples and 25% of cherries. And this means farmers have to figure out ways to not only grow, package, and ship their crops, but also how to export them across the world.

This is where the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) has stepped in to help. Its International Marketing Program provides support, training, and guidance to help agricultural companies learn how to successfully export their products.

“Buying local is really important, and we definitely support that at the Department of Agriculture,” said Rianne Ham, program manager for the International Marketing Program. “But we also realize and recognize that exports are also critical to Washington’s economy.

We figure about 30% of our agricultural products are exported.”

The program also helps match sellers and buyers and works to expand markets where there may be barriers. In addition to its in-state staff, the WSDA also employs overseas representatives in various countries including Japan, Vietnam, and Mexico.

Marco Albarran, the in-country representative for Mexico and Central America, has a rich history with Washington state.

“Washington state is very personal to me because I was an exchange student in Eastern Washington as a kid, so that’s how I got to learn English,” Albarran said. “And that’s how I’ve been going back and forth between Mexico and Washington for more than 35 years.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

GAME CORNER

Lentils were among one of the first crops to be domesticated in the Near East and have been part of our diets since the Stone Age. DID

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As an in-country representative, Albarran helps make sure that Washington products are successfully sold in Mexico. In addition to providing information on market trends in the country, he also introduces buyers and importers, helps with tariff restrictions and other export headaches, and shows growers around when they visit the country. He wants to make sure Washington farmers know they’re appreciated in Mexico.

“I know there are lots of people in Washington state that grow these products that are very fond of Mexico or even have their origins in Mexico,” he said. “So to them, thank you, because you’re doing a great job, and we’re taking good care of your products here, too.”

Francis Lee is the WSDA’s Vietnam representative

Marketing Director

Brandy Tucker

Editor-in-Chief

Kara Rowe

based in Ho Chi Minh City. He says he loves Vietnam because he came there when the country had nothing, and he is excited to see its growth and Vietnamese consumers’ increasing enthusiasm for high-quality foods like those grown in Washington.

“Every time I go back to Washington state,” Lee said, “I always tell all the companies, all the growers, ‘Come and see for yourself how dynamic this market is.’”

Ham said it’s crucial that Washington is able to help other countries who don’t have the food security that we have in the U.S.

“We’re feeding the world in the United States, and in Washington state,” she said.

The Washington Grown project is made possible by the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant program, through a partnership with the state's farmers.

Assistant Editors

Trista Crossley

Elissa Sweet

Writers

Elissa Sweet

Editor and Art Designer

Jon Schuler

Images

Tomás Guzmán

Jon Schuler

Palouse Brand USDA

Shutterstock

Washington Grown

Executive Producers

Kara Rowe

David Tanner

Chris Voigt

Producer

Ian Loe

Hosts

Kristi Gorenson

Tomás Guzmán

Val Thomas-Matson

Kristi Gorenson (left) spoke with Francis Lee (right) and Marco Albarran (bottom right) during Season 11 about Washington’s exports.