Brand Tasmania Newsletter, July, 2008, Issue 84

By Graeme Phillips.

Although wasabi is only distantly related to horseradish, what we get in those little green squeeze tubes or in powder form is mostly horseradish with green food dye added.

In Japan, wasabi grows wild and is commercially produced in the sharp gravels and clean glacial waters of mountain streams, where water temperature remains constant at between 11°C and 14°C. It is known there as "green gold" and its labour-intensive cultivation is declining due to shortages of willing workers, water pollution and urban encroachment. Accordingly, it is expensive, highly valued by the Japanese and rarely exported.

In the early 1990s, wasabi was identified as a potential alternate low-volume, high-value crop suited to Tasmanian conditions. The Department of Primary Industry estimated that 10 hectares of the plant could return between $3 million and $5 million a year.

Ian Farquhar liked those numbers and pioneered the crop on his farm in north-east Tasmania a decade ago. Despite experimenting at Winnaleah with growing wasabi in soil and in the cold waters and stream-side gravel beds of the Mole Creek cave system, he now regards those projected returns as illusory.

"It's very pedantic about its environment and is highly demanding of water, energy, time and money," he says today.

After almost as long trying to produce commercial crops in water races in Bothwell in the Central Highlands, Will Bignell says much the same.

"We lack sound scientific knowledge, it's difficult to tissue culture, costs a lot of money to grow and has proved very difficult to consistently grow commercial quantities of good quality material," he says.

However, Stephan Welsh has been successfully growing wasabi for seven years on his Arandale property at Perth in the northern Midlands, using hydroponic techniques for the past five years. He's now confident he's got the growing system sorted out and has invested around $250,000 in a 1,000 sq metre, climate-controlled, hydroponic greenhouse. Welsh has planted 4,500 plants in the first year of a three-year trial to test the economics of growing it in commercial quantities and to assess the consistency of market demand.

"If it all works out, we aim to expand production with another seven or eight similar greenhouses," he says.

Last year he joined three other Tasmanian wasabi growers in a joint marketing group trading as Shima Wasabi, the aim being to offer a single point of contact for the year-round sale of the fresh and value-added products. In addition to Welsh, the growers are Melina Parker at Milton Farm in Don, and Matthew Marston and Rob Gibb both in Westbury.

Shima Sales and Marketing Director, Melina Parker says they can now consistently despatch fresh leaves, stems and petioles (crunchy leaf stalks) to anywhere in Australia within 24 hours of receiving an order.