The community in action 

     Community members gained firsthand knowledge of one of Klamath County’s biggest economic generators last week during the Klamath Water Users Association’s second annual Fall Harvest Tour.

   Many of those on the trip were members of the Klamath County Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Klamath program, which is meant to foster leadership through awareness of the community in action, according to the chamber Web site.

   The chamber and the Herald and News partnered with the Klamath Water Users Association to fund the trip.

   The tour

   Participants began the day at the Mia and Pia’s Brewery south of Klamath   Falls, with a discussion of agriculture’s impact on the local economy given by Willie Riggs, an agriculture economist with the Oregon State University Extension Service. They then boarded a chartered bus to Lorella in the Langell Valley to learn about raising cattle, stopped at the Malin City Park for lunch and then toured Gold Dust Potatoes near Malin to learn about the chip industry.

   The group then headed for Seus Farms to see horseradish processing and mint tea leaf harvesting.  

H&N photos by Lee Juillerat  - Crews stay focused while selecting horseradish at Seus Farms.

   The tour ended at the Mia and Pia’s Brewery where head brewer Rod Kucera explained how local beer is made.

   “The biggest thing I learned was how far across the world the products from the Basin go,” Sullivan said.

   Neils gained firsthand knowledge of water issues in the Basin.     

   “You hear it on the news and to come out here and listen to these guys … each year they don’t know what they’re going to get. And yet they still do it,” he said. 

Gold Dust Potatoes   

Potatoes fly off the belt at Gold Dust Potatoes.

   About half of the chipping potatoes processed by Gold Dust Potatoes outside Malin end up as Frito-Lay potato chips, said Tricia Hill, corporate counsel for the company.

   In addition to Frito-Lay, Gold Dust markets about one-third of its potatoes to Asia and is the largest exporter of chipping potatoes to Korea, Hill said. Kettle Chips and In-N-Out Burger also are customers. As many as 60 semi-trucks a day leave Gold Dust’s shipping center during shipping season, Hill said.

   Bill Walker, chief executive officer of Gold Dust, said a new sorting   and cleaning system took the place of 12 employees, decreasing the number of people needed to run the washing, sorting and bagging operation from 16 to four. The company still maintains 50 yearround employees with another 100 added during harvest, Walker said.

   Most of the potatoes are grown in California, Walker said, with about 6,500 acres farmed by Walker Brothers fields near Merrill, Malin and Tulelake. Potatoes are rotated with hay and wheat crops.

   Most of the exports are shipped from Portland and take five weeks to reach their destination.  

Barrett’s Livestock   

Glenn Barrett shows how cattle are moved through squeeze chutes at his Lorella area ranch.

   What sets Barrett’s Livestock in the Langell Valley outside Bonanza apart is how cattle are handled and fed once they arrive at the ranch, Glenn Barrett said.

   “Husbandry and nutrition are keys to what we do,” he said.

   Beginning with vaccinations and quarantines, Barrett’s animals arrive at the ranch often stressed from traveling. The animals spend an average of three weeks getting acclimated to their new surroundings.

   Barrett’s yearling operation keeps the cattle until they hit a target weight of between 800 and 850 pounds before selling the animals to a feed lot or marketing the meat locally. Locker beef from Barrett’s Livestock is marketed at Diamond S Meats in Klamath Falls.

   Barrett’s cattle graze on free range pastures and get nutritional and mineral supplements.

   “It’s a smorgasbord of feed, so to speak,” he said.

   The supplement is made up of byproducts from grass, ethanol and oat production, which increases the protein and energy intake of the animals and allows Barrett to put more cattle on his pastures.  

Seus Farms   

Scot Seus’ license plate

   Scott Seus is a third generation farmer carrying on a tradition that began with his grandfather, a homesteader who began with 73 acres in 1947. The operation has grown to more than 4,000 acres today.

   “Our roots run deep, and those are horseradish roots,” Seus said.

   Seus’ high-quality horseradish can be found in Tulelake- and Beaverbrand horseradish products. The Tulelake area is known for hot and white horseradish that is grown by just three producers, Seus said.

   The horseradish has been both reliable and noxious for Seus, who tried to take a horseradish field out of production and six years later still has the tuber growing in rows   in a Kentucky bluegrass field. He also has concerns about diseases and pests, since rotating the crop of horseradish is almost impossible, and once a disease invades a field it’s hard to eradicate.

   Some 48 people process the roots by hand at Seus Farms, where between 75 and 80 people are employed during harvest.

   Seus farms also markets mint tea leaf to Bigelow Tea. In 2002, Seus said his farm was approached by a company concerned with chemicals then in use in the Willamette   Valley that were being banned in European markets.

   “We weren’t using those chemicals,” Seus said.

   Since then, Seus’ acreage in mint has grown 20 times over to now encompass 800 acres harvested twice a year.

   Not using the chemicals means fields must be weeded by hand. Seus uses biological management for pests, including predator mites, and peppermint essential oils for a two-spotted spider mite infestation.

   While creating a niche for his farm, Seus faces the challenge of being a producer of commodities not often grown in the Basin. He does not know what to do about rot found in his horseradish fields and must modify equipment to suit his needs.