The parsnip is one of those love it or hate it vegetables - like the Brussels sprout.
It certainly isn't spectacular to look at, just a creamy-coloured, long, cone-shaped root vegetable.
Yet the parsnip is in great demand at most top notch city restaurants just not in the "well mashed with carrot and a knob of butter" as it used to be served.
It's more likely to be found in souffles and soups or chips, or as parsnip mash on its own when it comes to fine dining. Karioi grower Jeremy Mott and his family have been growing parsnips in the district's rich volcanic soil for decades.
Jeremy remembers harvesting between May and October where at least 16 people including his parents and uncle would be down on their hands and knees in the mud pulling up parsnips.
"The parsnip isn't tough like a carrot. They can break and bruise easily so parsnips have always been harvested by hand."
But not anymore on the Mott farm in Karioi about 10 minutes from Ohakune.
That's because Jeremy has invented a specialised parsnip harvester and it's working like a dream.
"It's fantastic and what used to take 16 people, well now there's just three of us out in the field and the others are in the packing shed. It's made the whole operation so much faster."
Even though he hasn't had any formal engineering or computer training, Jeremy designed the harvester on computer.
"It's like the style of a carrot harvester but way more gentle ... the belt doesn't shake as hard. Everything has been designed to protect the vegetable."
At harvest times, Jeremy drives the harvester which is welded and built around a tractor, down the rows taking just the top leaves off.
The parsnips stay in the ground with just a small stalk above ground.
And this is where the new harvester is quite remarkable, he said. " It carefully lifts each parsnip out of the ground. It doesn't snap or break them."
Jeremy is "pretty proud" of his invention and it has blown away his parents who remember the old days of back-breaking work in the field at harvest time.
Already other parsnip growers have heard about the harvester and are keen to know how he's done it.
"Well, it just cuts down so much time and labour."
The 30-year-old father of two said the business was doing well, and that they were shipping vegetables out every day.
- lin.ferguson@wanganuichronicle