Wayne Wildy - St. Clair County, IL
This year's selection for Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year hails from the southwestern portion of the state and stands apart from other nominees in that he got started at the age of 14 with the purchase of his first 40 acres of wood-land. Nearly twenty years later, Wayne Wildy has immersed himself in nearly every facet of forest management and has made forestry con-tracting his life's work.
Wayne's property adjoins the family farm whose approximately 70 acre woodland he also manages. Between the two properties, Wayne has also planted over 100 acres of trees using nearly every planting method known. The timber soils on Wayne's Tree Farm are very productive as evidenced not only by the growth of planted seedlings but also by the incredible oak, hickory and ash logs harvested from the woodland, some individual logs yielding 2000 board feet! The Illinois State Champion Sweet Pignut Hickory resides on this property and gives an inkling to the stature of timber once common to this area.
As a forest contractor, Wayne has distinguished himself over the last decade through his hard work, a willingness to take on just about any task and his penchant for acquiring quite an impressive collection of forestry related equipment, including a self-propelled tree pruning platform, a semi-automated tree planting machine and a Woodmizer portable sawmill, to name just a few. In addition to planting more trees annually in this district than virtually every other contractor or landowner put together, Wayne has contracted a great deal of work with the Nature Preserves Commission staff and the Division of Natural Heritage in their efforts to manage and restore high quality ecosystems.
In addition to being a Tree Farmer, Wayne is a member of the Walnut Council and has served as a past president, is the current southern regional director, and in 2002 a Walnut Council Forestry Field Day was held on his property. In 1998 Wayne allowed IDNR staff and members of the timber industry to conduct the Game of Logging Pro Logger Training in his woodland. He is a life member of the Illinois Nut Growers Association and allows the Audubon Society to conduct annual bird counts on the property. Wayne also has volunteered many hours to the various IDNR staffers for projects as diverse as controlled prairie and woodland burns, help with the annual goose roundup, and assistance during timber harvest marking. Wayne is an avid sportsman and has improved his property for wildlife habitat with annual food plots and the installation of permanent wildlife plantings and water impoundments.
Wayne is now in the process of carrying out the management objectives of his current Forest Stewardship Plan that he helped write. Those objectives include serious improvements to almost every acre of his Tree Farm and include rigorous tasks such as exotic vegetation control, heavy site preparation for reforestation tree planting, installation of deer exclusion fence and timber stand improvement. For all this and more, please join me in congratulating Wayne Wildy of St. Clair County as the 2005 Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year.
