The Mott family has been farming south-east of Ohakune for more than 60 years. Now best-known as specialist growers of high quality parsnips under the Mott’s Premium Produce brand, this family business is still run by two generations of Motts.
Jeremy Mott says his grandfather started the family’s farming ventures with a 45 year lease on an 1100 acre farm with one paddock and no shearing shed. “That’s where my father, Craig and his brother, Richard grew up with their two sisters. With market gardening gaining traction in the Ohakune area, Grandad grew swedes for stockfood and suggested Craig and Richard supplement their wages by supplying the markets. “As this business grew, around the time I was born in the early 80s, they bought some land up the road, built a packhouse with a washer and hopper, and grew vegetables full-time.” As well as working for his father and uncle, Jeremy gained a breadth of experience in everything from hay making to potatoes with other local farmers including his aunt and uncle, Sue and Gary Deadman, and the Frew family.
“I also worked a ski season at Cardrona with my wife Amy before coming back to work for my parents in 2008. My uncle left the business, and we focused our growing efforts on parsnips and swedes. Sadly, I had only two years working with Dad before he became ill and passed away in 2017.” Growing a quality parsnip is no easy task with a high percentage not suitable for main market outlets like supermarkets. Allowing 150 days from seed to harvest, Jeremy is planting seed from late October while harvesting gets underway late February through to the following October. “Parsnips are best stored in the ground and harvested to order,” Jeremy says. “You can’t just dig and cold-store like potatoes and carrots. “Then you’ve got considerations like seed quality, germination rates and fungal diseases in the heavy foliage – they’re not easy to produce. This is where Kath Lee-Jones, our Fruitfed Supplies Representative, helps us with preventative disease management.”
When Jeremy took over a bigger role in the business alongside his mother Kandy and wife Amy, the harvesting process hadn’t changed much since the early days. Parsnips were dug by hand and harvested into crates every day through autumn, winter and spring. Rejects were left in the field and ones of suitable quality taken back to the packhouse for washing, packing and dispatch to wholesale markets, processing companies, major supermarket chains, and restaurants, as well as their local dairy. “Over the years, I’d worked with plenty of carrot harvesters and figured I could adapt the design to gently lift parsnips. Their thin skin marks and splits easily, causing rejects for our premium pack brands Winter Sweets and KC’s Parsnips. Now, we lift everything in that day’s harvested section of the field and sort it in the packhouse which also had some adaptations to handle the new process.”
This change then created the opportunity for the reject parsnips to be sold as stock food, while another grade of parsnips went to Proper Crisps in Nelson for their Garden Medley crisps. It was a request from Proper Crisps to supply beetroot for their vegetable crisp range that got the Motts into growing the heritage Chioggia beet variety. Now, popular online subscription services also source perfectly edible, possibly misshapen parsnips, swedes and beetroot from the Motts. Jeremy is very conscious of looking after the land. Like most of the market gardeners in the region, the Motts also run sheep and beef, and pay close attention to land use rotation. Currently they run a six to eight year rotation, from grass into swedes, parsnips, a season of potatoes with another grower, into barley, then chicory and clover in spring and ryegrass direct drilled in autumn. Amy’s father Tom manages the stock which are important to the wider operation’s annual cashflow.
“We’ve been talking with Kath and her colleague Conor Robertson about biological solutions to optimise the soil as it goes back into grass. We want it in the best possible condition with organic matter, and beneficial microbes and nematodes for the next time it’s prepared for a vegetable crop.” Prevention is Jeremy’s watchword when it comes to pests and diseases. “Grass grub and cutworm affect parsnips, while it’s more aphids in the swedes, then fungal diseases for the beets and parsnip leaf. Kath and Conor help us with regular monitoring so we can get onto any issues quickly.”
