Help sought to complete local gardening survey

April 30th, 2014
[by David Armstrong]

A local orchard block manager is seeking help from the Motueka community for for her Diploma in Horticulture university research project, to survey residents as a market research exercise.

Martina Sulak wants people to spend about 5 to 10 minutes filling out an online survey on landscaping business opportunities in the area. The survey is found via this link.

Originally from the Czech Republic, Martina has been living in Motueka area for about 9 years after coming here with her partner to help out with the fruit thinning, picking and pruning.

"My path to the position of block manager has been quite tortuous - through a Bachelor Degree in Philosophy and World religion, the National Certificate in Horticulture, to the Diploma in Horticulture I currently study for," she says.

"It's been an amazing journey as I have unconsciously followed the path of my ancestors - they all had been somehow involved in horticulture. Therefore it is not surprising I have settled down in the region which is very famous for its pipfruit growing activities."

As a part of the Diploma in Horticulture studies she has met several regional personalities and worked on many projects. One was mapping the past and current horticultural activities of Motueka and Tasman area, the other was a report on local organic kiwifruit orchard owned by Doug Satherley.

"I currently work on a project summarising labour shortage solutions for Nelson pipfruit growers. I also helped with interviewing RSE workers for the educational Vakameasina project.

"In the future I would like to focus more on the 'human assets' of the pipfruit industry. I might get more involved in Vakameasina training or focus on getting more locals into horticulture which is, among the fishery and tourism, a heart of Motueka region."

Martina designed the survey, which aims to research the landscaping and professional gardeners situation in Motueka area. The data will provide her with information about how much people take care of their backyards, whether they are able to do some jobs by themselves or need to hire someone.

"It might show the self-sufficiency in some aspects of the landscaping/gardening due to the nature of the region. It will also collect data about the people renting the houses - it will be quite interesting to see whether they want to keep Motueka beautiful equally as the homeowners."

Martina needs at least 100 people to take part in the survey for the results to meet the project conditions. "The more people will take part in this survey, the more accurate it will be," she says.

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