Nursery/agricultural Worker

Job description

General Duties: Duties performed in the field will include preparing soil, planting, pruning, cutting, deadheading, pinching, trimming to shape, spacing plants, potting, fertilizing with granular or liquid fertilizer, cleaning work areas, transporting plant materials in the nursery areas, loading and unloading plants and all other duties associated with native plant production. Between harvesting, workers will be required to perform duties to prepare crops for marketing. Workers will also unload pallets from trucks or wagons onto fields for transplanting. Workers may unload and restock for storage. Workers may also be required to perform work such as performing hand cultivation tasks, weeding or hoeing, cleaning and repairing seed beds, racks, grounds, set up and move irrigation pipes and equipment.

Workers will plant, cultivate, harvest, grade, store and ship container grown horticultural products, and work hemp fields. Workers will take liners of trees and shrubs, place in containers pre-filled with soilless media or dirt and transplant seedlings to prepared areas. Workers will overwinter trees by laying them on their sides and covering them with winter blankets. Hemp field work will include ground prep, planting, pruning, fertilizing and harvest.

Planting: Workers will dig holes with shovel for field plants and will plant containerized plants in the field. Workers may be required to work on the ground planting trees that are fed through a tractor pulled planter, using shovels. Workers will be required to dig trees and pick rocks. Workers may operate equipment only when proper training and sign off have occurred. Tractors should be driven in a manner to protect operator, other workers, products, trees, crops and equipment. Repeated failure to obey safety requirements and operating instructions may result in termination.

Pruning: When pruning, it is vital to prune the unwanted branch while protecting the stem or trunk wood of the tree. While pruning trees, workers will receive proper tools for the particular job, i.e., saw, pruner and hand snips. These tools will be returned to the employer at the end of the task. The cost of tools destroyed maliciously or lost carelessly will be charged to the worker. The supervisor will set a standard or pattern and will demonstrate and communicate this to workers. Workers will be assigned areas of trees and must prune each tree according to the predetermined standard. Workers must remove all resulting material from the trees rendered from performing pruning tasks. When pruning is complete on each tree, each worker is required to rake and scatter the resulting brush in the center of the tractor/equipment rows.

Plant production: Workers may be required to work on the ground tying branches with twine or hauling trees through the field and loading them onto trucks by hand.

Loading and Unloading: Workers may be required to work on flat bed trailers or enclosed semi-trailers. Workers may be required to work loading or unloading trees by hand into refrigerated trailers.

Watering: Workers may be required to water trees by hand using pumps and hoses and hand wands.

Work will also include heavy mechanized field work using power equipment. By way of example and not limitation power equipment may include power shears, mowers, skid loaders, chainsaws, tree baler, forklifts, golf carts, utility vehicle, tree spade and tractors.

Special Requirements

This job requires a minimum of three months of verifiable prior cultivation/harvest experience in nursery, fruit or vegetable production. Applicants must be able to furnish verifiable job reference(s) or comparable third party documentation from recent employer(s) establishing acceptable prior experience. Workers must be able to perform manual as well as mechanized activities with accuracy and efficiency. Must be able to lift/carry 90 lbs. Employer-paid post-hire drug testing is required after a worker has an accident at work. Saturday work required.