Lake Mead Native Plant Nursery Assistant

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The primary duty of the volunteer is to assist in the regular maintenance and care of the nursery facility and the plants being grown at the nursery. The nursery volunteer may assist in any of the following nursery duties:

• Watering plants using hoses and wands requiring extending, reaching, and leaning; carrying and lifting heavy hoses, bending or reaching, walking on uneven terrain, around and on outdoor tiered concrete pads or in greenhouses
• Irrigation maintenance and repair by checking emitter heads and valves for debris and clogs requiring bending, stooping, standing, squatting, and reaching; using hand tools to cut irrigation line, pokers to put holes in line, use pliers and/or other hand tools to to push connectors and line together.
• Irrigation maintenance and repair: Volunteer will be checking emitter heads and valves for debris and clogs requiring bending, stooping, standing, squatting, and reaching. Volunteer will clean the emitters by air blowing or by rinsing with water. Volunteer may also adjust the irrigation to improve plant coverage.
• PVC irrigation repair: Volunteer may assist with repairing the underground irrigation system. This activity involves digging with shovels to expose the pipe, saw the pipe near the leak, gluing PVC together using PVC glue, and re-filling in the hole with a shovel.

• Seed collection: Volunteers will use their fingers or hands to take the seeds off the plants and place them into a paper bag, or they will use a tennis or bad mitten rackets to lightly tap the plant releasing the seed into a bin.
• Seed cleaning: Volunteer will use fingers, tweezers, pliers, hammers, and/or clippers to clean debris from collected seed.
• Seed sowing- Volunteer will use fingers to sprinkle or embed seeds into soil contained within flats, books, D-40s, or other various plant containers.
• Seed germination preparation- Volunteer will be soaking seeds in running water, putting them in plastic bags for cold or warm stratification, and or using clippers or files to scarify the seeds.
• Monitor seedling development: Volunteer will walk around the compound and the greenhouse to observe plant health. This will involve walking over uneven terrain, reaching, leaning crouching, squatting, and extending.
• Transplanting: Volunteer will use fingers, hand trowel, tweezers, spatula, screwdriver, pencils, and or pens to transplant plants into planting containers. Transplanting may occur over a table or cart either sitting, stooping or standing.
• Relocate planted containers: Volunteer will assist with lifting and moving pots that are up to 80 lbs. This activity will require walking on uneven terrain while carrying the pots up to 400 feet across the nursery compound.
• Cuttings: Volunteers will get cuttings from the nursery coppice yard, compound or the field. The volunteer will use hand saws, pole saws, loppers, ladders, and pruners to perform the cuttings. Cuttings will require reaching, extending, bending over, crouching, standing, and stooping. Cuttings may be performed from a boat or on the ground. Volunteers will then stick the cuttings into pots.
• Prune plants: Volunteer will use handsaws, pole saws, loppers, and pruners to trim plant branches. This involves exposure to thorny and spiky plants that may cause skin irritation.
• Apply fertilizers: Volunteer will spray liquid fertilizer, or sprinkle dry fertilizer using applicator or gloved hands on plants in the nursery compound.
• Soil mixing. Volunteer will use a mechanical cement mixer that electrically rotates combined with manual turning of the soil with a shovel to mix the nursery soil medium. Soil mixing requires lifting and pouring 10-30 lb buckets of soil materials into a large bin or the cement mixer.
• Ground maintenance: Volunteer will pick up plant debris by bending over and picking it up or using trash pickers. Volunteer will also bend, stoop, squat, and crouch to pick-up plant debris, facility equipment and supplies;
• Weed control: Volunteer will hand-pull, hula hoe, or spray weeds. Hand-pulling involves bending, stooping, crouch, or squatting and plucking the weed from the soil. Hula hoeing involves using a hand tool and scraping it against the soil surface to remove the weed. The volunteer will then bend, crouch, stoop, or squat to dispose of the weed. Herbicide spraying involves use of a hand sprayer or a 30lb backpack sprayer. Volunteer will pour herbicide into the sprayer and spray the weed with the chemical.
• Out-plantings: Volunteers will use pick mattocks, long-handled shovels and trowels to dig 6-12" holes for the plants. The hole will be watered, and the plant removed from the pot and placed into the watered hole. The hole will be filled in with the excavated soil. This work will occur along busy highway roads or on remote 4x4 wheel drive roads. This activity will require standing, bending, stooping, squatting, crouching, prolonged standing, and walking on uneven terrain.
• Plant salvaging: Volunteers will use pick mattocks, long-handled shovels, and trowels to dig around plants to be salvaged getting as much root as possible with minimal damage to the plant. This activity will require standing, bending, stooping, squatting, crouching, prolonged standing, and walking on uneven terrain.