Mix and spray or spread fertilizers, herbicides, or insecticides onto grass, shrubs, or trees, using hand or automatic sprayers or spreaders.

“Mix and spray or spread fertilizers, herbicides, or insecticides onto grass, shrubs, or trees, using hand or automatic sprayers or spreaders.” is a core task performed by Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers. Among the occupation's 27 rated tasks, workers place it 22nd by importance (#6 most important). About 83% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Prepare mixtures or solutions. in Performing General Physical Activities
• Apply protective solutions or coatings. in Handling and Moving Objects
• Operate agricultural or forestry equipment. in Controlling Machines and Processes

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Gather and remove litter. · importance 4.1
• Use hand tools, such as shovels, rakes, pruning saws, saws, hedge or brush trimmers, or axes. · importance 4.1
• Operate vehicles or powered equipment, such as mowers, tractors, twin-axle vehicles, snow blowers, chainsaws, electric clippers, sod cutters, or pruning saws. · importance 4.0
• Water lawns, trees, or plants, using portable sprinkler systems, hoses, or watering cans. · importance 3.9
• Prune or trim trees, shrubs, or hedges, using shears, pruners, or chain saws. · importance 3.8
• Use irrigation methods to adjust the amount of water consumption and to prevent waste. · importance 3.8
• Provide proper upkeep of sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, fountains, planters, burial sites, or other grounds features. · importance 3.7
• Shovel snow from walks, driveways, or parking lots, and spread salt in those areas. · importance 3.7
• Maintain irrigation systems, including winterizing the systems and starting them up in spring. · importance 3.6
• Plan or cultivate lawns or gardens. · importance 3.5
• Care for established lawns by mulching, aerating, weeding, grubbing, removing thatch, or trimming or edging around flower beds, walks, or walls. · importance 3.5
• Follow planned landscaping designs to determine where to lay sod, sow grass, or plant flowers or foliage. · importance 3.5
• Trim or pick flowers and clean flower beds. · importance 3.5
• Attach wires from planted trees to support stakes. · importance 3.5

See all tasks on the Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-9596,
  title  = {Mix and spray or spread fertilizers, herbicides, or insecticides onto grass, shrubs, or trees, using hand or automatic sprayers or spreaders.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-9596}
}