Research Gardener

University of Wisconsin Madison•Hancock, WI

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Hancock Agricultural Research Station is a 412-acre vegetable research farm located in the Central Sands area of Wisconsin. Field trials at the station are related to potatoes, field corn, sweet corn, soybeans, snap beans, carrots, cucumbers and switchgrass. The station is also home to the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Storage Research Facility. The Hancock Agricultural Research Station is one of 12 UW-Madison research stations and is located in the central sands region. The station consists of approximately 452 acres of cropland with the primary focus being on irrigated vegetable crops (potato, snap beans, sweet corn, carrots, dry beans, and cucumber) but also other agronomic crops (corn, soybean, and wheat). There are over 150 research projects at the station annually. Employee is responsible for managing our horticultural display garden and providing landscape maintenance to our building grounds. The ideal candidate needs to be able to communicate with and take direction from managers, but employee is expected to exercise initiative, think independently, be a team player and demonstrate good problem-solving abilities.

Requirements

Demonstrated experience working in landscaping or grounds maintenance activities (e.g. mowing, trimming, edging, weeding, planting, mulching, debris removal, etc.)
Demonstrated experience working in a research-focused environment related to working in a lab/similar setting, following instructions, participating on projects, maintaining logs/data, etc.
Experience using Microsoft Outlook, Word or similar software to share and maintain data.
Strong organizational skills with the ability to work independently following training and established procedures.

Nice To Haves

Experience with greenhouse operations and plant care (i.e., watering, transplanting, monitoring plan health, sanitation, etc.)
Experience or training in vegetable production and/or crop agronomy.
Experience operating equipment commonly used in gardening, landscaping, or grounds maintenance (i.e.,. lawn mowers, trimmers, edgers, blowers, rakes, shovels, hedge trimmers, etc.)

Responsibilities

Coordinates the spacing of plants, shrubs, trees, and ground cover to ensure proper growth
Support HARS Team with planting and harvest of the research trials conducted at the station.
Coordinates the planting, sowing, fertilization, trimming, watering, and spraying of assigned areas
Develops, coordinates and executes spraying programs for fungicide, pesticide, and herbicide applications
Maintains and evaluates hardscape maintenance
Maintains inventory data for assigned area including tagging, insect monitoring, and planting and moving