AVR/Associate Agronomist, Citrus & Sub-Tropical Fruits (hybrid)

Job Description

Job DescriptionDescription:

Sun World International is a California-based agriculture and technology company engaged in fruit variety and cultivar development, technology, intellectual property, and licensing. Technology and IP pursuits include one of the world’s leading table grape and specialty fruit breeding/genetics programs, a broad-based portfolio of plant patents and trademarks and investments in agriculture technology start-ups benefiting its global licensees. Licensing consists of sharing new proprietary citrus, stone fruit and table grape cultivars, and the IP they comprise, with like-minded fruit growers and marketers in more than 15 countries around the world. The Company prizes creativity, innovation, and an entrepreneurial spirit. Its people strive for excellence by demonstrating leadership, passion, kindness, authenticity, courage, initiative, and curiosity.

Location: Hoedspruit, Limpopo, South Africa. Will also consider those in the Letsitele area.

Work schedule: Hybrid

We are hiring an Applied Varietal Research (AVR) Associate Agronomist for the Global Technical Services Department in Limpopo Province, South Africa for Sun World International. Sun World Global Technical Services (GTS) is responsible for grower technical support and variety evaluation. The AVR Associate Agronomist is a key person responsible together with the GTS team for organizing our citrus and subtropical variety evaluations. Using criteria defined in coordination with the GTS team, the Associate Agronomist will design and execute evaluations, create and maintain trial maps for various variety trials, manage the tree order and planting process for variety trials, audit commercial plantings, collate grower questions and provide feedback after consulting with GTS and drive the data gathering efforts for our citrus and subtropical plant variety protections.

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Management of evaluations: Planning the execution of evaluation criteria defined in coordination with the GTS team, gathering samples and documentation of fruit development at various stages of maturity, documentation of trial treatments, summarization of data related to the evaluations.
• Evaluate defects and potential performance improvements through applied trials. Be responsible for trial design, data collection organization, trial analysis, evaluation and reports.
• Gathering of plant variety protection information:Planning and execution of the data gathering tasks necessary at different stages of maturity throughout the season.
• Grower interaction and production guidelines: Contributing to the design of production guidelines by collating grower questions, follow up on the production guidelines with growers, and providing relevant feedback to growers regarding production practices in consultation with GTS.
• In cooperation with GTS Agronomists, perform regular visits to designated commercial farms where our company’s proprietary varieties are grown under license, identify technical challenges and suggest trials to solve problems. Prepare and deliver timely visit reports.
• Mapping and auditing of commercial plantings:Mapping orchards at time of order, visiting plantings to ground-truth the reported numbers and auditing existing plantings.
• Together with the GTS team and Licensing Manager, develop and implement various channels of communications with our company’s licensees in Southern Africa, such as WhatsApp groups, Broadcasting, newsletters and field days and use these channels to deliver information on trials’ results and receive feedback.
• Maintain consistent and productive relationships with entities and professionals who may contribute to our company’s success, such as government and private researchers, extension service, farm advisors, growers’ associations & committees, etc.
• Consistently search, identify and evaluate efficiency and feasibility of new technologies that may be beneficial to our company and/or to our licensees.
• Support South Africa’s Licensing Manager with information needed for best business management.

Requirements:

• A Bachelor's degree in Horticulture or similar with a minimum of 2 years of related experience.
• Good knowledge of the plant physiology and nutrition, soil characteristics, rootstocks, irrigation systems and other agronomic subjects. Specialization in citrus and sub-tropical crops is preferred.
• Ability to travel will be required, with the majority of the work being performed in the South African sub-tropical region (within a 2.5 hour radius of Hoedspruit). Travel abroad may be required (minimal).
• Outstanding verbal and non-verbal communicational skills. Bilingual (English and Afrikaans) is a plus. Proficiency in another South African language will be an advantage.
• High flexibility and mobility, readiness to travel, willingness to work during non-standard hours and on weekends/holidays if necessary.
• A high level of proficiency with Microsoft Office, especially Excel, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint.
• An understanding of procedures, responsibilities and systems.
• Exceptional time management skills and organizational ability, with the skill to multi-task and prioritize tasks. Ability to seek and suggest improvements.
• Good interpersonal skills.
• Organized, good at documenting and retrieving data, files and reports.
• Curious, investigational in his/her DNA, always willing to try and learn something new.
• High level problem solving skills, a keen eye for detail.
• High level of confidentiality and ability not to disclose farm and company information.
• Have a valid drivers’ license.