While some folks may jump into a venture with two feet forward in an effort to make a big splash, Dwight Batts, a fourth-generation forest landowner in Wilson County, took more of the “wade into things” approach to establishing his North Carolina Tree Farm.  The same type of wade one would expect to see a tri-athlete, who confidently enters the ocean water with a purpose and strategy to complete his challenging, yet rewarding endeavor.

 

When Batts bought his family’s 150-acre farm from his family in 1995, he not only was beginning a new career, but he was also going against his father’s words of wisdom many years before.

 

“When you graduated from high school back in those days, your father often said whatever you do, don’t farm,” said Batts with a smile. 

 

Batts initially listened to his dad.  He attended Atlantic Christian College in Wilson (now called Barton College) for a year before enlisting in the United States Air Force.  During his five years in the Air Force, Batts was stationed in Minnesota where he continued his scholastic work at the University of Minnesota at Duluth in addition to meeting his wife, Judy. 

 

“In Minnesota, I married a girl from Mississippi,” stated Batts.  “So I guess the Lord just had me go up there to find a wife.  And a wonderful one at that, we have been married forty years.” 

 

Batts returned to North Carolina and to Atlantic Christian to finish his degree in Chemistry with a wife and child in tow.  Batts accepted a position with Union Carbide and worked in the company’s Charlotte office for seven years.  He returned to Wilson in 1974 when he accepted a position with Abbott Laboratories, a company that Batts would work for some 25 years until his retirement in 1998. 

 

With his position with Abbott, Batts was located in Wilson much of his career, enabling him to take an active role with the family farm.  Dwight’s father, David Batts, was a farmer who kept a keen eye on markets and trends, which is certainly a trait he passed along to his son.

 

The senior Batts, who had purchased the farm from his father in 1957, began to sense in the early 1980’s that the days of tobacco being the ultimate cash crop were in jeopardy.  Batts had witnessed the establishment of tobacco quota system, which established how much tobacco a farmer could sell based on their acreage and previous tobacco production, in the 1950’s and then the systematic cutting of this allotment that continued up until the recent buyout.

Sensing trouble, David Batts began to seek alternatives to the mighty tobacco leaf. 

 

“He was kind of a forward thinker,” explained Dwight Batts.  “He knew that the tobacco program was looking as if it was going to be in trouble down the road.  He was growing tobacco, corn and soy beans at the time.”

 

The elder Batts became the first farmer in Wilson County to enroll in the Conservation Resource Program (CRP), which was a program established in the 1980’s that encouraged farmers to convert marginal agricultural land that is at risk of erosion to forestland.

 

Working with folks in the Farm Service Agency and the N.C. Division of Forest Resources, Batts put together a proposal for his land to be enrolled in this program that established new forests on the property with a private planting in 1984 and CRP plantings in 1986 and 1988. 

 

Dwight Batts officially accepted his place in the Batts family tree farm when he purchased the property from his family and made his real commitment to the farm in 1998 when he retired from Abbott. 

 

During this interim period, Dwight’s mom, Mildred Batts, managed the farm and oversaw the timber harvest of 35 acres and coordinated the first prescribed burn in the CRP plantation.   

 

“When she oversaw the harvesting of the timber,” said Batts.  “She was out there everyday encouraging them with blueberry muffins.  My consulting forester, Bob Mazur, still chuckles about that.”

 

“There’s no question that Dwight Batts is one of those landowners not only committed to the stewardship of his forests,” states N.C. Tree Farm Co-Coordinator Dave Woodmansee, “But Dwight is driven to be one of the best at it.  Plain and simple.  He is a great example of how North Carolina landowners provide countless environmental benefits to the general public through their dedication to wildlife and healthy forests.”

 

Currently, Batts’ 150 acre farm includes some 115 acres of Loblolly Pine, 10 acres of Longleaf Pine, 15 acres of cleared land and a 10 acre pond.  In 2000, Batts purchased another 100 acres of forestland at a different location to bring his total Tree Farm acreage to 250 acres. 

 

While Batts has been involved in the forestry aspects of the farm since his dad first enrolled in the CRP program in the early 1980’s, Batts now is about as hands-on as you can get.  He actively seeks the best advice available from various sources including his consulting forester, Bob Mazur, Earl Barber who is retired from Weyerhaeuser, the N.C. Division of Forest Resources, the North Carolina State Cooperative Extension Service and the North Carolina Tree Farm Program. 

 

Driving the various trails through his property, Batts points and conveys vivid details about each section of his farm as it pertains to the history, soil content and growth record of the trees.  It was not long into Batts tenure as a forest landowner that he experienced the shifting tides that Mother Nature can bring by the way of wind and rain, particularly when it packaged in a hurricane and little critters. 

 

“In 1996, we had harvested this area,” explained Batts as he pointed out to the left of his pickup.  “Right after, (Hurricane) Fran came and laid down trees everywhere.  I was still away working at that time and only came back periodically.  The beavers got in there and dammed it up and killed about five acres of Loblollies.”

 

Since then, Batts has battled the little brown dam-builders ever since with brute force and some finesse forestry to regenerate the area. 

 

“I knew it was going to be a continuous battle,” stated Batts.  “I took out fourteen dams three years ago and got it dry enough to where I can control it with water risers.  I went down to Weyerhaeuser and bought some of those bald cypress trees from Louisiana and hand planted them.”

 

He now considers these eight acres as the wetland portion of his property, a designation that is not fully deserved but it is due in part to the beaver activity. 

 

“It would be less than that, but aerial photographs were taken during the period after Fran and Floyd that showed water covered sections as a result of beaver dams and subsequent flooding,” stated Batts.  “Because of damage by the hurricanes and subsequent beaver activity, many farms appear to have more wetlands than is normal.” 

 

When he is not fighting beavers, Batts, the chemist turned “forester”, can be found taking soil samples at various locations to gauge the progress of his efforts.   Since the property was once agricultural land and the topography varies over the 150 acres, Batts understands that the soils in one part of his farm may be entirely different than that of other parts.  By taking soil samples at the 6-8 inch level as well as the 12-14 bench mark, Batts can gather information that will dictate further actions such as fertilization and controlled burns.

 

 “I need to know how the trees are doing and if they are getting the nutrients that they need,” explained Batts.  “We had not done this in the past.  I am trying to measure just where I am with nitrogen and trace elements.  Also, to see what effect the burning was having as far as releasing the nitrogen back into the soil.  I did that for two or three years in a row.”

 

At this point, Batts employs this information to determine what nutrients are available at the surface for the feeder roots and what is down below for the deeper roots.  He also takes samples from the pine needles to see actually what nutrients are making it up to the canopy.  This analysis has already paid some dividends.   

 

“For example, these trees right here are smaller,” explained Batts.  “They were planted back in 1986.  They should be bigger than that.  It is just this one section right here on the east side of this hill.  I did a soil sample and found that the potash and the phosphorous were real low. “

 

Batts addressed the problem on the east side of the hill with more fertilizer, but in other areas, Batts employed the chainsaw rather than the spreader to encourage a healthier forest stand.  In some areas, particularly those plots planted during the first stages of the CRP program, the trees were planted too closely together.  He estimates that 770 trees were planted per acre at this time and that number has since been dropped to 400 through thinnings. The increased competition for the minerals and moisture in the soil discourages growth, resulting in smaller, spindly trees.

 

As a side note, the CRP program used to plant 770 trees per acre in the early 1980’s.  Currently, the amount of trees per acre planted under this program has been dropped to 500.

 

To address plantation density and the competition problem earlier in the growth cycle, a 35-acre 1997 replanted Loblolly forest was pre-commerically thinned in 2003 with amazing results in the first year. 

 

“The growth rates were just phenomenal after the thin,” stated Batts. 

Conceding that this type of thinning is a cost incurred, Batts believes it remains a critical step in developing healthy forests, but he cautions that all thinning projects should weigh several options. 

 

“Thinnings depend on stand density,” explained Batts.  “How much you cut is a judgment that must be based on height and width of the trees, the impact the thinning will have on a stand in times of wind and ice, and ultimately, what type of timber product you are trying to grow.”

 

On his land, Batts is more inclined to take a conservative approach to thinnings because he has several objectives for his timberland.  

 

“Part of you wants to say, ‘Hey, whatever will get the fastest growth, but you have to look at the site and say, hmm, this is more than just for timber,’” stated Batts.  “It is for recreation.  It is for wildlife.  I certainly don’t want to mess it up.  You get 20 years into the cycle and then you do something like that, you get real anxious. “

 

Anxiety is one thing that all forestland owners have to deal with.  Over the past 10 years, Batts has seen firsthand how timing can make all the difference in the face of hurricane winds.  Fortunately for Batts, he has been lucky during this period, having completed a harvest prior to Fran’s arrival in 1996 and then another thinning project in 1999 before Dennis and Floyd came through.   In the case of Dennis and Floyd, Batts’ farm only lost a few trees. 

 

“Thinning operations are a complicated thing as I learn more about it,” admits Batts.  “You have to be careful of how you thin and what you clear-cut because of the way the wind hits it.  The more trees you have all together, the better off you are. They lift that wind right up.” 

 

Aside from sampling soils and measuring his trees, Batts maintains an eye on the timber markets whenever he is 12-16 months out from a harvest or thinning project.  He would like to thin one area of his property in the coming year, but he fears the amount of pulpwood on the market due to Hurricane Isabel will depress the asking price for his wood. 

 

“If I had done the second thinning in February,” says Batts with some regret, “there would have been a lot more value to it.”

 

Batts is also a big proponent of prescribed burns, which turn out to be family endeavors.  Since Batts’ property is crosscut with several access roads and a pond, he manages to portion off areas to be burned in order to check the hardwood growth among his pine stands. 

 

“I just have a real problem with gum trees,” explains Batts.  “If you burn them enough, you can eventually drive them down.”

 

Batts balances plantings, thinnings and harvests on his property to ensure that his lands provide recreation, wildlife habitat and eventually, high quality timber.  He has specifically planted trees and shrubs that encourage wildlife on the edge of his pond as well as managing different age classes within his 150 acres.  His budding 10-acre stand of Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) longleaf pine are the current habitat of numerous rabbit, quail and other birds. 

 

Needless to say, Dwight Batts is a hands-on tree farmer who expects results from his research and efforts.   Ideally, Batts is striving to develop forests that grow quality sawtimber.  He has some soil quality issues to address as well as some density issues, but his ultimate goal is to standardize the growth rate of the trees across his entire property.  Ideally, he would like to be able to get his trees to 14 inches in diameter in 30 years.   

 

At the suggestion of Bob Mazur, Batts is taking his soil sampling to the next level by developing a grid of the farm to measure the amount of wood he is producing each year.  It is a project he hopes to get underway next year.   

 

“I get help from Rick Hamilton and Dr. Bob Bardon, who are very knowledgeable and with the North Carolina State Cooperative Extension Service,” explained Batts.  “I’ll pick out a site and use my little aluminum nails, numbers and mark it on the grid.  I can sample the same site over and over, taking the diameters, the heights, doing the boring and measuring the growth rings, and then Bob Barton has a program where you can load this data into and it will tell you exactly how much wood you are producing each year.  The value of measuring the same data over and over is to get feedback on improvements and see how well they are working.”

 

To be sure, Dwight Batts, who is involved in the Wilson County Forestry Advisory Committee and continues to reach out to other landowners to help them manage their forests in a positive fashion, is not your average Tree Farmer in his approach, but he is the typical Tree Farmer when it comes to his enthusiasm for trees.