Trim trees or other vegetation
Little of this can be handed to software today.
This happens in the physical world, so software agents do not touch it. Automation here means robotics and machinery, which is a different market from the one mapped on this site, on a much slower clock.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 6 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Handling and Moving Objects (4.A.3.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 6 occupations that perform it.
- Plant or maintain vegetation through activities such as mulching, fertilizing, watering, mowing, or pruning.
- Mow or trim lawns or shrubbery, using mowers or hand or power trimmers, and clear debris from grounds.
- Mow or edge lawns, using power mowers or edgers.
- Cut away dead and excess branches from trees, or clear branches around power lines, using climbing equipment or buckets of extended truck booms, or chainsaws, hooks, handsaws, shears, and clippers.
- Thin or space trees, using power thinning saws.
- Clear brush from work areas and escape routes, and cut saplings and other trees from direction of falls, using axes, chainsaws, or bulldozers.
- Prune or trim trees, shrubs, or hedges, using shears, pruners, or chain saws.
- Trim, top, and reshape trees to achieve attractive shapes or to remove low-hanging branches.
- Prune or shear tree tops or limbs to control growth, increase density, or improve shape.
- Trim off the tops and limbs of trees, using chainsaws, delimbers, or axes.
- Trim or pick flowers and clean flower beds.
- Trim jagged stumps, using saws or pruning shears.
- Prune, cut down, fertilize, and spray trees as directed by tree surgeons.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Nothing on this site applies. Automation here is robotics and machinery, a different market on a much slower clock, and no software subscription moves it.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
6 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Cut trees or other vegetation”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Cut trees or logs | 5 |
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.