Farmworkers And Laborers Crops

Job description

Workers will perform assign duties as instructed by their supervisor.
Preparing land for Watermelons: Workers will prepare the land for watermelons which involves the removal of weeds, rocks, tilling, fertilizing and removal of old plants from the area. Spreading compost or well-rotted manure on the soil. Workers will raise beds or mounts of dirt to improve drainage. Once the is ready, workers will plant watermelon seeds or young plants, spacing them about 36-42 inches apart, and leave 6-8 feet between rows so the vines have room to spread out.

Planting of fruits and vegetables: A tractor will go over the fields making holes for the plants to go in, workers will grab a container of plants from the wagon or truck, walking down the rows the worker will put one plants per hole, when finish with the container of plants, the worker will walk back to the wagon or truck and grab another set of plants, repeating the process through the work day.
Harvesting of fruits and vegetables: Once at the picking location, doing a row at a time, workers will move down the rows plucking the fruits and vegetables from the plants and putting them in a container. Once the container is full the worker will take the container back to the wagon or truck and dump or replace the container for a new one. The worker will go back to his picking area and fill his container up again, repeating the process through the work day.
Harvesting Blueberry by hand, the worker will walk down the blueberry field rows where the blueberry will be harvested. The worker will place a 1 gallon picking bucket with a strap over his shoulder from the field truck to the particular area of the field where the fruit will be harvested. The 1 gallon picking bucket is a canvas, equipped with a shoulder strap for support. Worker positions himself in front of the blueberry tree and will remove the fruit from the tree and place into the 1 gallon picking bucket taking care not to break any limbs, damage the tree, or knock off the fruit. When the 1 gallon picking bucket is full he will take it to the truck at the end of the row where he will unload his fruit into a small tub or container
Field Maintenance: workers will do overhead irrigation, lay plastic, tie, stake, prune, weed, clean micro jets, collect and dispose trash and remove plastic and drip lines from fields using their hands and tools provided by employer.
Watermelon: the worker will walk down the watermelon field rows where the watermelon will be harvested. The worker will first cut the vine off the watermelon with a small knife and turn the watermelon over. The worker will bend over harvesting the ripe watermelon which can vary in weight from 20 to 60 lbs. from the ground and tossing the watermelon to the worker next to him and this worker will toss the watermelon to the next worker and so on, until the watermelon is then tossed to the person inside the bus who will place the watermelon on the floor. Workers may be required to operate farm equipment.
Watermelon Packing: When the bus is full, it will be taken to the packing house where the workers will unload the watermelon and put it in a conveyer belt that will transport the watermelon into the packing house where it will be separated by size, labeled and packed.
Watermelon field packing will also take place inside the farm.
Note: The Packing house is located inside the Farm and at least 50% of the product processed belongs to the Fixed Site Employer.

Special Requirements

This type of work, involves working conditions that require tremendous stamina, a high level of physical activity in cold or extremely hot conditions in direct sunlight and in adverse weather such as rain. The work requires a high level of physical conditioning. Workers will be trained for 7- 14 days.