2025 Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year

The N.C. Tree Farm Program named Chuck and Rita Daniels of Windsor the 2025 Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year. The Daniels family’s Bertie County Tree Farm has been enrolled in the N.C. Tree Farm Program since 1987 and has been in their family for more than 225 years.

Their reason for owning the land is not for investment but for love of the land and for the love of family, ancestry and heritage that goes with it. Their goal is to leave the land in better condition than when they took ownership. As avid hunters, the Daniels’s management focuses on creating diverse habitat for wildlife including migratory waterfowl, songbirds, rabbit, quail, dove, deer and turkey.

Chuck is a forester by trade and has been an active volunteer with the N.C. Tree Farm Program since 2002. What sets Chuck apart from other Tree Farmers is his promotion of forest stewardship with other landowners, natural resource professionals, decisions makers and the general public. Chuck has helped trained loggers, exhibited and presented at forest landowner conferences, assisted with forestry tours for teachers, taught at forestry camps for middle school students, given Earth Day presentations at elementary schools and met with N.C. legislators to educate them about the importance of North Carolina’s forests. The Daniels family also has hosted forestry tours to teach other woodland owners about forest management.