Agricultural Equipment Operators

What Does a Agricultural Equipment Operators Do?

Drive and control equipment to support agricultural activities such as tilling soil; planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops; feeding and herding livestock; or removing animal waste. 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.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• 1Load and unload crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtrucks, forklifts, or transfer augers.
• 2Mix specified materials or chemicals, and dump solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery.
• 3Spray fertilizer or pesticide solutions to control insects, fungus and weed growth, and diseases, using hand sprayers.
• 4Observe and listen to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunctions.
• 5Manipulate controls to set, activate, and adjust mechanisms on machinery.
• 6Operate or tend equipment used in agricultural production, such as tractors, combines, and irrigation equipment.
• 7Adjust, repair, and service farm machinery and notify supervisors when machinery malfunctions.
• 8Attach farm implements such as plows, discs, sprayers, or harvesters to tractors, using bolts and hand tools.

Required Skills

• Farm Management Software Hay and Crop Manager
• Martens Farms Farm Site Mate
• Martens Farms Farm Trac
• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint

Agricultural Equipment Operators Salary