By SARA HOTTMAN

H&N Staff Reporter

September 16, 2010

   It’s more than just a commodity, it’s an artisan crop, said Scott Seus of Seus Family Farms, which grows the horseradish root for Tulelake Horseradish, a well-known condiment with a red, white and blue label bisected with geese.

   “There’s a lot of pride that goes into (the crop),” Seus said. “I feel like we’re providing something special, something that a lot of people aren’t willing or don’t take the time to do. We’re growing something unique.”

   Harvest time

   Seus started harvesting the crop on Wednesday after an expensive growing season. The farm spent about $300,000 insuring its product and using wells to water its crops because of water shortages.

   “Take horseradish out of production for a year and it takes two years to grow back,” Seus said. “We can’t get in a situation where we’re without water.”

   The farmland has had wells since 1992, when the farm first faced water shortages.

   “We had to protect our horseradish contracts,” Seus said. He installed several wells then and several more in 2001, during the area’s severe water shortages. This year money went to improving wells — “big ticket items,” he said.

   “Makes it hard to go home and have anything more than hot dogs at the end of the day when you’re spending money like that,” Seus said.

   Other crops

   The farm also grows tea leaf peppermint — another artisan crop — onions, organic and conventional alfalfa, and cereal grains. The onion crop had to be moved to Macdoel, Calif., to ensure access to water.

   Seus Family Farms started growing horseradish in the 1950s, after Oregon State University researchers discovered the Czechoslovakian variety — probably brought to the U.S. by early settlers in Malin — could grow in this climate, Seus said.     

   “It’s a mainstay on our farm,” Seus said. “It’s part of our heritage. People depend on us for that product, and we enjoy doing it, and we’ll continue to do it as long as it’s a viable product.”

   Beaverton Foods now produces Tulelake Horseradish, but the biggest market for horseradish right now is wasabi.   Wasabi in the U.S. is actually ground and dried horseradish reconstituted with a green tint.

   “You have to go to a pretty high-end sushi shop to get the real McCoy,” Seus said, adding, “Caucasians don’t know the difference.”