Join us for the N.C. Tree Farm Program’s 2026 Annual Meeting on May 16 at Bayfields in White Oak, N.C. The event will include a field tour focused on wetland and longleaf pine restoration, creation of bobwhite quail habitat, prescribed burning and Carolina Bays. The program will also include presentation of volunteer and Tree Farmer awards.

Bayfields is a 4,000-acre Tree Farm that supports sustainable timber management, recreational hunting, pine straw production and habitat enhancement for rare and non-rare plant and animal species. Located in Bladen County, Bayfields has ecologically significant longleaf pine and wetland habitats within a larger landscape of natural forest, pocosin and managed timber. The property contributes to a network of federal, state and private conservation lands in northern Bladen County with a 1,770-acre conservation easement donated to The Nature Conservancy in 2007.

The current family owners have refocused management efforts toward habitat conservation and restoration. They are restoring upland old field loblolly pine and slash pine plantations back to longleaf pine stands that more closely approximate the structure and composition of the natural longleaf pine stands that once occupied the sites.