Springboro Tree Farms is honored to be the state 2021 winner of the Charles Deam Award
Awarded annually by the Indiana Forestry and Woodlands Owner’s Association (IFWOA), the Charles Deam award honors outstanding Indiana forest owners who demonstrate good forest stewardship.
Charles Deam, Indiana’s first state forester, was a pioneer in recognizing the need for protecting woodlands and managing our forest resources and we are honored to be recognized for our work in pursuing these goals here at Springboro Tree Farms.
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We are also pleased to be an FSC Green Certified woodland within the Forest Stewardship Council’s efforts to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.
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Our appreciation for both the forest and the trees (can’t see one without the other) started with our days in Scouting and continues to this day. Young summers were spent in a small cottage on the Wabash River (just north of River Junction) and frankly, there probably wasn’t a better way for a couple of young boys to grow up…running the river, building tree houses, hunting squirrels, fishing and just sitting in the woods…
…and yes, we had Davey Crocket Coonskin caps.
While we still enjoy our toys (we call them “tools” now), the enjoyment we get out of just hanging out in the woods is still at the top of our list.
When we purchased the farm in 1991, we immediately enrolled the property in the Indiana Classified Forest and Wildlands program. This provided access to DNR forest and wildlife management advice and the development of a forest management plan. And to take that management plan to the next level we later became certified in the American Tree Farm System. Read more about this in the Healthy Forest section of the website. And for even more detail, you’ll find our ongoing Stewardship Plan (with the DNR) as well as our Forest Management Plan (and related schedule) in the Technical Documentation provided in the footer of each page of the website.
All that planning helped to clarify and document our objectives and strategy. The long-term objectives include optimizing hardwood timber value and the growth of a “sugar bush” (that’s industry talk for a woods full of sugar maple trees)
And the strategy for that timber stand improvement program includes:
the planting hundreds of Purdue #1 black walnut seedlings
the planting of trees as needed for forest regeneration
deer population management
and an ongoing initiative to control invasive plants such as multiflora rose, brush honeysuckle and tree of heaven to name a few.
…but if you’d like to know more now, here a few helpful links:
Interested in the Indiana Classified Forest and Wildlands program? Here’s a link for more info:
Interested in the American Tree Farm System?
https://www.treefarmsystem.org/certification-american-tree-farm-system
Want to see more detail about forest road design and construction best management practices? Here’s a link to what the folks and the NRCS used as guidelines for the development of our plan.
http://www2.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/bmp/index.html
With more than 500 members statewide, the Indiana Forestry & Woodland Owners Association is an imporant voice in the state as they promote good stewardship of Indiana’s woodlands.
Learn more at www.ifwoa.org.