Agricultural Technician

MSU Jobs•Starkville, MS

About The Position

It is the responsibility of the person in this position to conduct all the field operations involved in Plant Pathology research on cotton, corn, wheat, and soybeans. These include but are not limited to planting, weed and insect control, fertilization, fungicide spraying, harvesting, and summarization of data. We have guidance systems on our tractors and automatic weighing systems on our combines and cotton pickers which the person in this position will have to operate. Duties also to include routine maintenance and upkeep of MAFES equipment, buildings and other infrastructures but not limited to equipment operation, carpentry, plumbing and other duties as assigned.

Requirements

Education: High school diploma
Experience (yrs.): Six months of experience directly related to the duties and responsibilities specified AND six months of general experience.
Certifications and/or Licensures: 1. Valid driver’s license. 2. Must obtain a Certified Pesticide Applicators Certificate within 90 days of employment or complete the worker/handler training, whichever is applicable.
Substitution allowed: Any equivalent education and/or experience will be considered.
Duties require basic physical and mental skills and abilities, including equipment and use of hand tools, power tools, heavy machinery or other equipment and use of basic or intermediate math, reading, or writing skills.
Follows detailed instructions and procedures.
May work under limited supervision and prioritizes tasks independently.
Ability to work in extreme weather conditions.
Requires heavy physical work; heavy lifting, pushing, or pulling required of objects up to 50 pounds.

Responsibilities

Preparation of fields for planting. This involves disking and rowing up research plots. Application of fertilizers, application of burn down and pre-emergence herbicides. An adjunct to this is to obtain and treat the seed needed for our research.
Planting of research plots. We use cone planters to plant our soybean, corn, and cotton plots. The planter has an automatic tripping system and is equipped with a Global Positioning Unit which has to be calibrated etc. Wheat is planted with a conventional planter.
Weed control. This involves the timely application of herbicides to control weeds in the plots. Our plots have Round Up resistant pigweed and ryegrass. The person in this position has to be familiar with current weed control methods available. This also involves mechanical methods of weed control such as tillage, mowing etc. of alleys etc.
Layout of plots. Plots are measured used a tractor equipped with a GPS unit. Alleys between plots are identified with this unit and are cut with a bush hog.
Irrigation of plots. Plots will have to be irrigated as needed. This will involve the laying of poly pipe or the use of a lateral move irrigation system. This person will have to know how to operate the lateral move system etc. Irrigation timing is critical and water will have to be applied as needed.
Foliar fungicide applications. Fungicides are sprayed with a cabbage patch or hi-boy tractor using three gallon stainless steel beverage containers. The person in this position must know how to calibrate the sprayer to deliver 15 or 20 gallons per acre. The correct amount of fungicide must be determined for each plot. The fungicides must be applied at the correct growth stage of the crop with the correct nozzle tips.
Harvesting corn and soybeans. Corn and soybeans are harvested with a combine equipped with a weighting system. The person in this position must know how to operate the weighting system and how to download the data to a computer.
Picking cotton. We have a two row cotton picker equipped with a weighing system which the operator will have to know how to operate. Due to the delicate nature of this machine, this person will be the only one allowed to operate the picker. The person will not only harvest Plant Pathology plots but will also harvest cotton plots for several other scientists at the station. The data collected from the plots will have to be downloaded and summarized.

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