Agricultural Equipment Operator 45-2091.00

Job description

Workers will use mechanized and power-driven equipment such as tractors, planters, sprayers, cultivator, and other equipment to plant, cultivate, harvest, and irrigate crops. Workers will be expected to be able to operate agricultural equipment with or without direct. Workers must be able to comprehend and follow instructions, communicate effectively to supervisors. Unusual, complex, or non-routine activities will be supervised. Field workers will be expected to perform their general duties in a timely and proficient manner. Workers must obey all safety rules and basic instructions and be able to recognize, understand, and comply with safety, pesticide warning/re-entry and other essential postings.
Workers must have a clean driving record (no major moving violations such as but no limited to Driving while intoxicated or reckless driving) and able to obtain an insurable driver’s license may be required to drive company vehicles.
Workers with proper licenses will use company vehicles to transport employers’ crops, tools and fellow workers.
Workers will install and maintain irrigation systems and water lines. Move and install irrigation pipes and equipment, remove drip tubing or install drip tubing, dig and maintain ditches.
Workers will plant, cultivate, and harvest tomatoes. Workers will be required to remove weeds by hand or with a hoe. Workers will bend and stoop to pick vegetables according to size, color, shape and degree of maturity and place into field containers. Workers may carry full container weighing approximately fifty (50) lbs. and empty into field bin or load onto trailer. May be required to pull and discard culls as directed by supervisor. Pickers will take care not to bruise or scar produce. Pre-harvest activities may include staking, tying, transplanting, and pruning. Workers will stand on feet for long periods of time. Workers are required to work in fields when plants are wet with dew or rain. Temperatures in fields during working hours can range from forty (40) to over one hundred (100) degrees.

Tomato planting, cultivation, and harvest: Workers will help in installing plastic and drip irrigation tubing on raided beds in tomato rows in the field. Workers will cover edges of plastic with soil using long handle shovels being careful not to tear or puncture plastic, Workers will not be expected to operate equipment used in application of the plastic row covers. Workers will plant weed, drive stakes, and apply string every two plants, prune all suckers to the first main fork on the tomato plant being careful not to break leaves or injure the stem of the plant. At harvest time workers will pick mature green tomatoes from the vine, remove stems and place in standard 5/8-bushel plastic picking bin.

Care must be exercised to prevent bruising of the tomatoes. When the picking buckets are full, the worker will carry them to the truck where they are dumped into bins for transport to the packinghouse. Tomatoes vines and product must be free of moisture before harvest begins. This drying usually occurs before noon therefore workers are expected to begin work around noon and continue until 8:00pm. After the tomatoes are transported to the packing house, workers will assist in the unloading, dumping, grading, and packing. The workers may make boxes and lids, place different grade sized of tomatoes in box, apply lids, and stack on pallets and load trucks for transport to market. Much of the packinghouse work will be done in the evenings of the same days the tomatoes are harvested.

Workers will also pick red/pink tomatoes at times. When doing this they will remove from the vines all tomatoes that are showing any red or pink color, ranging from a small spot of red on the blossom end to the fully red tomato. Workers will place harvested tomatoes in standard 5/8-bushel plastic picking buckets discarding any cat-faced, deformed, decayed or water damaged tomatoes on the ground between rows.

Special Requirements

Must have three months experience operating 55+ Hp farm equipment. Applicants must be able to furnish affirmative job references from recent employers. Must be able to work in the hot humid weather for extended periods of time. Workers are subject to random drug testing at no cost to the employee. All drug testing will occur after the worker begins his or her employment and is not a part of the interview process. Failing or refusing a drug test will result in immediate termination.