Laura Schultz wins BOP Young Grower title

Laura Schultz receives her prize from MP Kiri Allan.

There was a time when Te Puke's Laura Schultz thought horticulture wasn't for her.

Now, she says it's the best job ever.

Laura last week won the 2022 Bay of Plenty Young Grower title after a day of challenges and a speech contest.

She grew up on her family's Te Puke orchard.

"My parents had kiwifruit and avocados, so I was brought up there and worked there as a teenager," she says.

Since then she has studied fashion design, been a yoga instructor and working as a snowboarding instructor.

"It definitely wasn't my intention to come back to [horticulture]," she says.

"I worked outside overseas and I really loved being outside, and when I came back I thought 'I don't want to go back into an office'."

She again helped with the family's avocado harvest.

"I really enjoyed that. The plan was to go to Europe, but Covid cancelled that and I got more and more involved and now it's the best job I've ever had, I just loved it and thought 'this is what I'm going to do'."

Laura now leases the family orchard and also works in a grower liaison capacity for Trevelyan's.

"I work with 60-odd avocado growers so I'm the liaison between the packhouse and the growers. I help them get ready for harvest, do the crop estimates and answer questions they have and help out with paperwork and all that sort of stuff."

The young grower competition last week saw eight growers test their skills and ability to run a successful horticulture business in a series of challenges.

Laura says she enjoyed the ASB Innovation challenge, which she won.

"I think it was because you could prepare for that one, so I had everything prepared and I was ready."

The practical tractor and excavator challenge was "a lot of fun".

"I enjoyed the avocado injecting one as well.

The young growers were still under the spotlight later in the day with a speech competition titled "What I'll be growing in 2050".

"I left it quite open and suggested different things that we might be doing, but the crux of it was climate change and problems overseas and how that affects us in New Zealand. I said maybe we would be growing avocados and kiwifruit, but maybe we won't - maybe we'll be leaning towards more tropical foods."

Before the winner was announced, Yanika Reiter and Emily Woods were named in second and third respectively.

"They had done an incredible job and I thought 'there's no way they'll have three women up there' and I also thought there were a couple of other contestants I thought were definitely going to take it out, so I was very surprised, but obviously stoked with the outcome."

Laura's prize included an all-expenses paid trip to Wellington in September to compete for the title of National Young Grower of the Year 2022, as well as $1500 cash.

She says it's still a little too early to think about the national final.

"I've had some past contestants reach out and say they will be able to help me prepare and I'll meet up with them, but I haven't thought too much about it."

BOP Young Growers chairwoman Erin Atkinson, who won the national title in 2017, said this year's contestants were outstanding.

"This year's BOP Young Grower contestants have shown the great talent we already have within our horticulture industry. The competition has been perfect to test their knowledge and I hope that it sets the bar for other young talent coming through our industry."

New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc chief executive Colin Bond agreed, saying these competitions show appreciation for the need for skilled careers in the horticulture industry.

"As a horticulture industry, we can often focus on knee-jerk reactions required for the current season.

"But in order to continue to produce effectively into the future, we need to ensure we have young people with the right commercial, technical and scientific skills."