Horticultural Technicians: Job Description, Education, Skills and Abilities, Earnings and Outlook
Submitted by: paula
Job Overview Horticultural technicians are nature technicians. They cultivate plants and market plant and plant products that make the surroundings more beautiful and fresh. They may also help in the landscaping of the public and the private lands. At present, there are approximately 1.5 million horticultural technicians who provide both horticultural and landscaping services in the United States.
Education, Knowledge and Trainings Required
If you wish to establish a career in becoming a horticultural technician, prepare as early as high school by taking as many subjects as possible in Agriculture, Biology ans Earth Sciences. The minimum educational requirement to become such is a possession of a high school diploma alone. What is important is the significant experience in taking care of different types of flora by way of an apprenticeship program offered by some vocational schools, or becoming a garden worker under a senior technician.
Skills and Abilities
The skills that are high needed in this job include artistic skills and technical/scientific skills. They should be highly trained in taking care of different types of flora such as the trees, shrubs, flowering plants and fruit bearing plants and plants, to name a few. To be able to facilitate a good business, communication skills and marketing skills are necessary so that they can offer or market their services to households, different institutions and companies, and their products to the buyers.
Duties
The duties of a horticultural technician vary depending on their specializations. Most of the time, they specialize in one or more of the areas as follows: floriculture (flower culture), turfgrass (grasses), arboculture (trees culture), nursery operations (include trees, shrubs and hedges). Most of the entry level technicians work as growers or maintenance workers, or even salespeople. Floriculture technicians ans nursery operations technicians work similarly.
They maintain greenhouses and nurseries to grow plants and sell them afterward. Included here are the determination of the appropriate soil and water conditions for specific plants, the choice of fertilizer and rooting materials for cutting and trimming. They are involved in transplanting seeds, inspecting crops for weeds, insects and diseases, pruning plants and maintaining good plant conditions to promote the highest or the most profitable yield. Those who are called turfgrass technicians run their own business or work for lawn care service providers. This include mowing, fertilizing, irrigating and controlling insects and weeds. Lastly, those who are called the arboculture technicians plant, feed as well as prune and control pests in trees. They usually take care for the tress on the company grounds or in landscaped areas of parks and various city venues.
Earnings and Job Outlook
The job outlook for this kind of career is said to move faster than the average for the other types of professions. The range of salary for a horticultural technician starts off from 10,712 U.S. dollars to 20,000 U.S. dollars per annum. Others who have established a name in the field, or own their businesses, and are being sought by high profile clients may earn around and over 41,000 U.S. dollars per annum.
Paula Hiz is a researcher and a human resource specialist who helps newly graduates, job applicants and post graduate professionals be aware of their job opportunities and available trainings for skills and practice upgrading.
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