High school student Lincoln Roper, 16, is the youngest competitor in the 10-year history of the Young Vegetable Grower competition.

Sixteen-year-old Canterbury high school student Lincoln Roper has been helping out on his family's horticultural property since he was seven.

So when it came to competing with much older contestants in the Young Vegetable Grower of the Year, Lincoln took it in his stride.

He was more than competitive in the range of challenges from finance and marketing tasks to quad bike safety, seeder cleaning and fertiliser – coming runner-up out of four. The title was won by Andrew Hutchinson, 28, from Pukekohe.

Lincoln was initially urged to participate by Christchurch horticultural stalwart Graham Martin, a long-time organiser of the event. With three contestants from Pukekohe lined up, Martin wanted to ensure there was also a Canterbury contestant in the mix. The youngest competitor in the 10-year history of the competition, Lincoln was below the 18-year age entry requirement to progress to the next level, the Young Grower of the Year, if he had won, but still keen to participate.

Only confirmed as a contestant about 10 days before last week's competition in Christchurch, Lincoln didn't have much time to prepare. However, the year 12 Lincoln High School student has had a lifetime of experience with his family's business, Roper and Son, near Lincoln township after which he was named.

The 60 hectare property grows red onions, pumpkins, squash, processed peas for Heinz Wattie's, wheat and barley.

His parents, Lance and Makereta Roper's fortunes are now so closely linked with red onions that icing versions of the vegetable even decorated their wedding cake. The couple were struggling to make an income from vegetable growing about 20 years ago when MG Marketing suggested that they specialise in peeled red onions, then a relatively novel vegetable. They are now the biggest red onion grower in the South Island, supplying Foodstuffs' supermarkets New World and Pak'n Save. Onions are sold in packs of three under their own "Roper's ready to go" label as well as loose.

As the popularity of red onions has expanded, so has their growing, peeling and packing operation, with Makereta giving up a job in Christchurch to run the office and packhouse. They now supply 800 tonnes of peeled red onions year-round.

Red onions have a milder, sweeter flavour than the more common brown onion, and can be eaten cooked or raw, adding a dash of rich colour to any dish. However, red onions need to be handled with more care than the brown variety to avoid bruising.

Initially peeling onions by hand, in 2007 the Ropers bought a defunct chicken farm, close to their original property and built a purpose-designed peeling plant and new packhouse. An imported skinning machine had to be substantially modified to suit New Zealand-grown onions.

They are now starting to outgrow this and were looking to import a more modern peeler, able to process more tonnage per hour, said Lance.

Not surprisingly, crying can be an occupational hazard in the packhouse, particularly for new staff. "New staff always struggle for two weeks. Then your eyes become immune to it," said Lance. Staff wear no special eyewear, apart from safety glasses.

Makereta: "Often visitors enjoy looking at the factory, but are in a hurry to get out."

Even with the peeler machine, a lot of hand work is required to achieve the finished product for supermarket shelves. While a chamber of compressed air removes the dried outer layers, the onions still need to be trimmed top and tail, with packhouse staff using air guns to remove the final layer.

A fourth generation grower, Lincoln recalls one of his first jobs on the farm at the age of seven, driving a tractor to weed pumpkin rows before they started to run. He was already starting to make decisions in the paddock without his father, such as deciding to double disc the top of a stubble paddock before ripping. "It is more work, but better on the gear.

"I enjoy planting and watching plants come up and knowing that you have done the job right." Lincoln mainly helps out in the school holidays and sometimes after school during the peak harvest period. "I try to stay out of the packhouse. I prefer the outdoors."

He studies agriculture and horticulture at high school and future plans include a diploma of agriculture at nearby Lincoln University.