Farmworker/laborer (ii)

Full Time: Yes

Number of Workers Requested: 9

Job Duties: Job Specifications Include: 1. Train and position apple trees and plants to trellis, including clipping and tying limbs and shoots to wire from the ground or ladder up to 16 feet in height, or from a motorized platform. 2. Complete farm clean up tasks to include picking up garbage around the orchard and fields, picking up roots and rocks, removing old string and wire from trellis and orchard/field blocks, and other hand tasks. 3. Paint tree trunks and posts. 4. If worker is eligible to drive under Michigan law and provides proof of no infractions from official source, Employer may require worker to drive to and from the worksite in vehicles with less than 15 passenger capacity and to locations within 30 miles as directed. To be eligible for driving job, worker must understand and agree to driving rules, as outlined in work rules below. 5. Safely operate tractor and other farm vehicles as directed.. 6. Plant and complete other hand tasks to establish and maintain orchard and field areas, including shoveling, picking up roots and rocks, staking, weeding. 7. Sort harvested apples and cut flowers for quality standards and inform worker of quality deficiencies. Use and understand basic handheld electronic devices. Mark apple bins at .75 full using scanning barcode system and printer. 8. Repair boxes with hammers and nail guns. 9. Roll out and clean up tarps throughout orchard as instructed. 10. Lift, push and place heavy posts. 11. Clean farm vehicles as assigned. 12. Assist with organizing farmworker housing prior to subsequent worker arrivals, including cleaning, organizing inventory and housing repairs. 13. Assist in reviewing cold storage rooms for any air leaks and will repair leak. Clean cold storage rooms in accordance with food safety requirements. 14. Set up and operate irrigation equipment. Maintain and repair irrigation and climate control systems. 15. Maintain inventories of materials, equipment, or products. 16. Monitor and repair wind machines. 17. Repair farm buildings, fences, and other structures 18. Dig, cut, and transplant seedlings, cuttings, and trees 19. Repair and maintain farm vehicles, implements, and mechanical equipment. 20. Identify plants, pests, and weeds, input findings into cloud-based tracking system. 21. Harvest plants, and transplant or pot and label them. 22. Clean work areas, and maintain grounds and landscaping. 23. Harvest cut flowers based on quality and order standards. 24. Tie and bunch flowers, plants and wrap their roots, and pack them into boxes or buckets to fill orders. 25. Change water in flower buckets daily with proper storage solution based on order requirements. 26. Clean & sanitize buckets after use. Sanitize snips between plants. 27. Monitor plant roots in storage, divide using knives and sharp scissors, and organize by variety. Pay will be hourly. Crew Lead: Direct and monitor the work of seasonal workers. Report issues to worker supervisor. Thinning: Thinning is a manual process used to control the size and quality of grown fruit. Remove the smallest fruit blossom, bud and/or identifiable fruit from within a cluster of other fruits. Identify and remove fruit that is misshapen, damaged and/or with other quality problems as directed by supervisors. Tools utilized: Ladders up to 16 foot (40 lbs); driving/riding motorized platform Grafting: Grafting is the process of manually inserting a section of a fruit tree stem with leaf buds into the stock of a planted fruit tree. Worker will be required to safely use a knife to cut off a branch of the understock, making a straight, slanting cut. Worker will then attach the cut section of the new stem to the stock of the tree and bind tightly with tape. All grafts must be covered with a protective coating immediately after completing the graft. Tools utilized: Knife, chainsaw

Job Classification: 45-2092.00 - Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse

Experience Required: Yes

Months of Experience Required: 3

Special Requirements: Season Commitment: Job offered requires worker be available for and worker agrees to work every day that work is available for entire employment period. Worker must be able to perform job description duties in safe manner consistent with established safety procedures. Worker must possess requisite physical strength and endurance to repeat harvest process throughout workday. Worker must work at sustained pace and make good faith efforts to work efficiently as reasonable under working conditions and consistent with amount, quality and efficiency of 1 acre per day for pruning, 1 box per hour and a half for Golden Delicious apple harvest, 1 box per 2 hours for Honeycrisp harvest and box per hour for all other variety apple harvest. Field work begins at assigned time shortly after daylight. Work may be scheduled during moderate rain, in high humidity, when trees are wet with dew/rain, and in temperatures as low as -5 degrees F and up to 100 degrees F.

Number of Hours Per Week: 40

Work Schedule (Start/End time): 7:00 A.M. - 3:00 P.M.