Above) Trail camera image from Moser Woods

Tree Farm of the Year tours on September 9

By Benji Bergstrand

Chris Moser of Moser Woods in Bluffton was named 2025 Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year by the Ohio Forestry Association at their annual meeting earlier this year. He will be hosting a Tree Farm of the Year tour at his woods located at the corner of Bentley Rd. and Road R on September 6 that will include attractions for all ages.

Moser has been the primary person managing his woods since his father passed away in 2013, but his connection to the land goes back much further. His family settled on the land in the 1800s. “I grew up on a family farm that was started in 1832 by people who immigrated to the U.S. looking for a better life,” Moser said. “They found cheap land that was sold by the government after the land was taken from the native peoples.” Chris’s brother David Moser runs the farming operation, and they are the 5th generation to work on the farm. 

Moser’s early memories of the woods are of fall picnics and trips to gather firewood in the winter. “The woods were always a fun, exciting and wild place,” he said. Spring wildflowers were always abundant and though the “good” mushrooms eluded their searches they enjoyed finding puffballs and had no trouble finding papaws when they were in season. 

Now five generations into the care of this piece of land, Moser is thinking generations into the future. He has been managing the woods to remove invasive plants and improve the quality of the trees in the woods while at the same time improving habitat for wildlife.  

Getting more oak trees established in Moser Woods is a key component of this plan. Moser has planted over 1,000 trees in the woods over the last several years with the majority of those being oak trees. Oak trees are a critical species for woods in this area. “The best thing about oak is that it’s a much better habitat for insects, deer and all sorts of animals,” Moser said. “If you look at how many species depend on oak versus the other species in the woods– it’s almost triple. It’s not just the quality of the wood. It’s also a place where different things that live in our environment can thrive and exist.”

In addition to providing high quality wildlife habitat, Moser Woods also produces quality timber. The woods were logged as part of the overall management plan. Moser recommends working with a forester, using a certified logger and going in with a plan that will balance wood harvest and the longer-term health of the woods. “I like seeing a lot of big trees in the woods so it was kind of heartbreaking to come back after they harvested a lot of trees and you see how open the woods are,” Moser said. “But that’s what you need to do in order to keep the oaks and keep the next generation coming back.”

The Moser Woods Tree Farm of the Year tour will be held on Saturday, September 6 and will feature children’s activities, information about maple syrup harvesting, forestry and the government programs that Moser used to help create and support his forest management plan.

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