Grower - Fruit

The Opportunity

Are you an experienced Assistant Grower / Assistant Growing Manager / Graduate Grower looking to progress your growing career with a passion for fruit production, crop development and driving agricultural performance? Our client is looking for a motivated and commercially minded Grower to join their team, taking responsibility for delivering growing strategies that achieve quality, yield and productivity targets. Reporting to the General Manager, you will play a key role in planning and managing day-to-day growing operations, ensuring crops reach their full potential while maintaining high standards of quality, food safety and operational efficiency. This is an exciting opportunity for an Assistant Grower / Assistant Growing Manager / Graduate Grower who enjoys being hands-on, developing new growing methods and contributing to the ongoing success of a progressive fruit business.

Key Responsibilities

• Growing Strategy & Crop Performance: Develop and implement growing strategies to achieve agreed quality, yield and productivity targets across each crop variety.
• Operational Management: Oversee day-to-day growing activities, ensuring operations are completed on time, to the required standard and within budget.
• Crop Planning: Work alongside management to agree annual crop profiles, prepare forecasts and support effective labour planning.
• Team Coordination: Work closely with Technical, Operations, Husbandry and Irrigation teams to coordinate activities, establish priorities and maintain efficient growing operations.
• Growing Environment: Maintain a fit-for-purpose growing environment, ensuring conditions are optimised for crop quality, health and yield.
• Irrigation & Fertigation: Lead the implementation of irrigation and fertigation strategies to maximise crop performance while ensuring efficient use of water and fertiliser.
• Crop Health & Husbandry: Implement effective husbandry practices and work with agronomists and technical specialists to minimise yield losses and maximise productivity.
• Crop Monitoring: Conduct regular crop walks, assess performance and identify opportunities to improve growing conditions and address potential issues.

What You'll Bring

• Growing Experience: Previous experience within agriculture or commercial crop production, ideally with exposure to fruit growing.
• Technical Knowledge: An understanding of crop husbandry, growing environments, irrigation, fertigation and crop development.
• Planning & Organisation: Strong planning skills, with the ability to coordinate multiple growing activities and manage competing priorities.
• Commercial Awareness: An understanding of labour costs, budgets, productivity targets and the importance of delivering strong crop yields.
• Problem-Solving: A proactive approach to identifying challenges, resolving issues and implementing effective solutions.
• Attention to Detail: The ability to monitor crop performance, interpret relevant information and maintain accurate records.
• Communication: Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with colleagues, management, technical specialists and external partners.
• Innovation: An interest in trialling new techniques, improving growing systems and developing innovative approaches to crop production.

Qualifications:

• A relevant agricultural qualification, such as FACTS or BASIS, would be advantageous.
• A full, clean UK driving licence is required.
• A flexible approach to working hours, particularly during key growing periods.

Why Apply?

• Career Development: Take ownership of growing operations and further develop your expertise within the fruit sector.
• Variety: Enjoy a diverse role combining crop production, team leadership, technical development and operational planning.
• Innovation: Contribute to trials, new growing methods and the development of improved cropping systems.
• Commercial Impact: Directly influence crop quality, yield, productivity and operating costs.
• Collaboration: Work alongside experienced management, technical specialists, agronomists and external growing partners.
• Continuous Improvement: Help shape the future of growing operations through new ideas, improved processes and industry best practice.

If you're an Assistant Grower / Assistant Growing Manager / Graduate Grower who combines strong technical knowledge with leadership ability and a passion for improving crop performance, we'd love to hear from you.