2010 Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year    

The Wisconsin Tree Farm Committee would like to extend congratulations to all of the 2010 Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year (OTFY) at the County, District, and State levels of recognition as well as their nominating foresters. The Tree Farmers recognized this year for promoting sustainable forestry and the standards of the Tree Farm program are:

            District 04 Michael and Rae Farley – Pierce County. County & District 4 OTFY. Nominating Forester: Gary Zielske, DNR Forester

            District 5: Dennis and Kim Schoeneck – Oneida County. County & District 5 OTFY. Nominating Forester: District 5 Chair, David Czysz – DC Forestry Consulting

            District 7: Robert and Phyllis Gottschalk Marinette County, County and District 7 OTFY. Nominating Forester: Steve Kaufman – DNR Forester

            District 08: Randy Risler (Risler Tree Farm) – Eau Claire County. County, District 08 OTFY. Nominating Forester: Chris Widstrand – DNR Forester

            District 15: John and Sally Ouellette (Dayton Ridge Tree Farm) –  Richland County. County, District 15, and State OTFY. Nominating Forester: Jake Elder – DNR Forester

2010 Wisconsin Tree Farmers of the Year

            Congratulations to John (Doc) and Sally Ouellette, owners of the Dayton Ridge Tree Farm in Richland County, on being selected as the 2010 Wisconsin Tree Farmers of the Year.

John and Sally have owned the property for 39 years and since 1972 have been planting trees on the 297 acres of the Dayton Ridge Tree Farm.  Tree planting has been a large part of the management plan with trees planted using machine, hand planting and direct seeding species including black walnut, butternut, and chestnut, red and white oak, shagbark hickory, cherry, white pine and red pine.

John has worked overtime to prevent the deer from destroying the tree growing efforts. Early on, he applied aluminum squares to the vulnerable tree buds in the fall that with spring removal, they have both solid and web tree tubes and tree wraps. To prevent the deer from rubbing the trees in the fall they have used baling twine attached to the limbs of the trees with three to five empty aluminum beverage cans hanging in the area of the potential rub which has nicely prevented potential tree damage. An eight foot fence was installed around a recent planting project where a three and a half acre clear cut was planted with every other row white pine and every fourth row red oak and black walnut.

Since acquiring the land, John, Sally, the kids, friends and fellow deer hunters, have made many improvements. In addition to tree planting, they have planted and burned the prairies, worked extensively to rid the land of the exotics like multifloral rose, autumn olive, wild gooseberry, garlic mustard, box elder, buckthorn and deer. There have been several timber sales over the years with one recent sale including 240 black walnut trees and many mixed hardwood species.
Timber stand improvement to include pruning, thinning, and releasing of the various crop trees has been done over most of the forested area.

Repeat deer hunters come each year, each has their spot, and quality deer hunting is enforced. They shoot many deer and all the processing is done on site. The farm has provided many Tom Turkeys to our table.

 They have over three miles of roads and every one can be traveled twelve months of the year. Three ponds have been made which accommodate all forms of wild life. There is a 35 box blue bird trail that is well managed. John and Sally make maple syrup, and utilize ironwood and red and white oaks trees that come from thinning or timber stand improvement to raise shitake mushrooms along with a program each year where others are taught the fundamentals of mushroom farming.

Being tree farmers prompted John and Sally to become member of the Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association and the Black Walnut Council and they have had the good fortune of working with a great group of DNR workers. John is presently the president of the Wisconsin Walnut Council, is on the board of the National Walnut Council and works with the Hardwood Improvement Group for Purdue University. John has taken the Woodland Leadership Institute course in 2008.  The project for that course was to provide the hardwood that was needed to finish off the new Madison Children’s Museum that opened in August of 2010.

John and Sally have worked with Jake Elder, DNR Forester, on numerous projects.  Jake indicates that John and Sally are very enthusiastic and committed to improving the land as well as educating himself in the management of the property.  

Doc has established some test plots of chestnut, butternut and walnuts. Doc’s background as a specialist of molds has led to an interest in diseases of Butternuts, Walnuts, and Chestnuts. This has led to the collecting of seeds from disease resistant trees and planting them on the property, Doc will soon be collecting twigs from a large healthy butternut in hopes of creating disease resistant trees through grafting. Doc also attended a 1,000 cankers conference in St. Louis in 2009.

John and Sally are very committed to improving his land as well as providing an environment where other landowners can visit and educate themselves on improving their land, John and Sally also take the role of good land stewards to the next level with their dedication, enthusiasm, and foresight and sincerely deserve to be the 2010 Tree Farmer of the Year.