Agricultural Equipment Operators

Drive and control farm equipment to till soil and to plant, cultivate, and harvest crops. May perform tasks, such as crop baling or hay bucking. May operate stationary equipment to perform post-harvest tasks, such as husking, shelling, threshing, and ginning.

Job Task

• Drives tractor with implements to plow, plant, cultivate, or harvest crops and to move trailers for crop harvest.
• Drives truck to haul harvested crops, supplies, tools, or farm workers.
• Adjusts, repairs, lubricates, and services farm machinery, and notifies supervisor or appropriate personnel when machinery malfunctions.
• Loads hoppers, containers, or conveyor to feed machine with products, using suction gates, shovel, or pitchfork.
• Thins, hoes, weeds, or prunes row crops, fruit trees, or vines, using hand implements.
• Positions boxes or attaches bags at discharge end of machinery to catch products, places lids on boxes, and closes sacks.
• Discards diseased or rotting product, and guides product on conveyor to regulate flow through machine.
• Attaches farm implements, such as plow, disc, sprayer, or harvester, to tractor, using bolts and mechanic's hand tools.
• Observes and listens to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunction, and removes obstruction to avoid damage to product or machinery.
• Sprays fertilizer or pesticide solutions, using hand sprayer, to control insects, fungus and weed growth, and diseases.
• Drives truck, or tractor with trailer attached, alongside crew loading crop or adjacent to harvesting machine.
• Oversees work crew engaged in planting, weeding, or harvesting activities.
• Hand picks fruit, such as apples, oranges, or strawberries.
• Weighs crop-filled containers and records weights and other identifying information.
• Loads and unloads crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtruck, forklift, or transfer auger.
• Mixes specified materials or chemicals and dumps solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery.
• Irrigates soil, using portable pipe or ditch system, and maintains ditch or pipe and pumps.
• Walks beside or rides on planting machine while inserting plants in planter mechanism at specified intervals.
• Manipulates controls to set, activate, and regulate mechanisms on machinery such as self-propelled machines, conveyors, separators, cleaners, and dryers.

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