Horticultural Development Officer, Teagasc
Michael Gaffney, Horticultural Development Officer
What were the main ‘career decision’ milestones in your life so far?
I suppose the biggest career decision I made so far was deciding to give science another go after failing my first year in Maynooth.
To be honest I was fairly close to packing it in at that stage, but I am very glad now that some people, my parents especially, convinced me to give it another go.
After that, the decision to give up my job in Swansea to return to Teagasc. I had always wanted to work in academia, in a university, lecturing and doing research, but after a few months realised that I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Even still it was a very hard decision to move away from lecturing into an advisory role.
Who are the people who most influenced your career direction?
My parents have probably been the biggest influence in my career decision, mainly in the fact that they mostly stood back and let me make my own decisions, even when it looked like I was making the wrong one.
They offered advice at times but would leave it up to me to make the final decision.
A lot of the people who I met while doing my postgraduate in Kinsealy have helped me to get the job I now have, either by taking 10 minutes here and there to teach me something new, or by introducing me to other scientists I could learn from.
Does your job allow you to have a lifestyle you are happy with?
I am very happy with the lifestyle that my job provides for me. I spend a large proportion of my working day outdoors. I get to travel a lot.
As it is a public sector job, it has good security and promotion prospects if you are willing to work hard. The hours can be fairly flexible, which always makes life a little easier, avoiding traffic etc.
Describe a typical day
I suppose I have two kinds of typical days, depending on what area I need to focus on.
A day doing advisory work usually involves spending the first half of the day visiting growers, talking about what problems or issues they are having and also talking over any successes that also may have occurred.
The second half of the day would be back in the office following up on any queries or questions that arose from the visits that morning.
A day working on research projects usually involves conducting and setting up experiments. Experiments in horticulture, especially field trials, need to be planned extremely well because if errors are made in the set-up, you usually have to wait till the next year to repeat it.
Administrative work involved with research projects takes up a lot of time, but it has to be done. In reality my typical day is usually a mishmash of the two.
What are the main tasks and responsibilities?
My main task is to provide an advisory service to growers, especially protected crop growers (crops grown in glasshouses and plastic tunnels).
This can mean helping them with advice, from crop nutrition to pest and disease control and pesticide advice to help with government schemes. I am also responsible for conducting research programmes which have special relevance to the area of horticulture.
The areas I focus on are pesticide replacement (biological control), phytochemicals (health-promoting chemicals) from fruit and vegetables, and the benefits of using compost in horticulture.
What are the main challenges?
Trying to keep up to date with new innovations in the protected crops area. A lot of the research being conducted in the area is by private companies, so by the time it becomes public knowledge, it is usually a couple of years old.
Because of this, I spend a lot of time going to growers conferences and visiting growers in other countries to keep up to date.
Horticulture is very much about trends – some years grasses are very popular, the next year aliums may be the big sellers.
Even in the fruit and vegetable sector things are always changing, be it the colour (blue potatoes, black carrots), size (different baby vegetables) or even new markets such as fresh herbs, which, except for parsley, would not have been very popular 10 years ago, are now becoming incredibly popular. Keeping up with all the new trends can also be difficult.
What particular skills do you bring to your workplace?
Enthusiasm, an ability to learn from previous mistakes, friendliness, problem-solving skills.
What subjects did you take in school and how have these influenced your career path?
I suppose I made a couple of bad choices for my Leaving Cert. I chose chemistry which to this day I’m not really sure why, as I was always better at biology.
I also did accounting which helped me decide that the one thing I definitely did not want to be was an accountant. In hindsight, I probably should have picked biology and economics.
I think the best thing about the Leaving Cert is that because you can do such a wide range of subjects, it helps you decide what career areas you definitely have no interest in as well as some areas you might like to study further.
Being 17 to 18 is very young to decide on what you want to do for the rest of your life, and while it works for some people, I think for the majority it’s best to pick the subjects you enjoy (or hate the least).
What is your education to date?
I did my Leaving Certificate at Coolmine Community School, but did not do very well, mostly due to me being lazy but I think I also made some bad subject choices (my father was a guidance councilor and he tried to advise me, but I thought I knew better).
In the CAO I was offered a place to do science at Maynooth which I took. Again I didn’t do very well in my first year, passing biology but failing maths, chemistry and computer science.
I ended up repeating the year and decided to start studying properly – otherwise I would fail completely or be a fairly old man by the time I finally graduated. I ended up knuckling down and three years later managed to graduate with a degree in biology.
I was then offered a place to do a masters in UCD and Teagasc at Kinsealy. It was based on developing fungi to control insect pests.
It was a little different to normal masters projects, in that it was very applied, but also allowed me some freedom to research areas which interested me.
After four and a half years at Kinsealy I went to work at the University of Wales in Swansea, where I was running a project on developing fungi to control forest and nursery stock pests. Eventually I returned to Teagasc to take up my role as a horticultural development officer at Kinsealy
What aspects of your education have proven most important for your job?
My degree from Maynooth gave me a very broad knowledge of biology, chemistry and maths. This has made it easier to move into different areas of research.
Our biology degree spanned modules from molecular immunology to ecology, and it really gives you a good solid foundation in many areas of science.
Also there were a number of plant biology courses which have helped a lot in the advisory side of my job.
Have you undertaken, or do you plan to undertake any further training as part of your job?
In horticulture, most of the further training happens by attending conferences and seminars, mostly abroad, which is a nice perk. I do intend to take some sort of management course in the next year or two.
What have been the most rewarding events in your career so far?
Graduating from college. Setting up my own research areas.
What personal qualities do you have that helps you in your career?
Listening to people, flexibility, and curiosity.
What is your dream job?
If I could I would love to grow grapes in the south of France or be a rugby journalist. If I could combine the two, even better.
What advice would you give to someone considering this job?
If you want to get into horticulture, be it in research, advice or actually growing, there are many different ways to get the necessary skills.
You can start by working in a nursery, learning on the job. Also applying to some of the horticultural colleges or research stations for work experience will also give you a good idea what this industry is about.
There are plenty of college courses, both full- and part-time, that you can do. You can even get into the industry later in life if you wish to do another degree/course first.
A lot of the people I see in horticultural college are people who have already started one career but then decided to go back to horticulture. A lot of people see horticulture a way of making their hobby into their job.
