The 2023 Windbreak Award Winners are Alan Dix and Travis Jones

The 2023 Rooks County Windbreak Award winners are Alan Dix and Travis Jones of Stockton. In 1998, Alan and Travis started planting trees for the Rooks County Conservation District. Their first project was a CRP Enhancement planting on Andreson property. Those first years were dedicated to CRP Enhancement contracts, and they could plant 15,000+ trees in those spring months. Later on, most of the plantings were for windbreaks, so fewer trees were planted.

Over the years, Alan and Travis learned how vital site preparation was. It was best to prepare the site in the fall before planting using a deep rip disc and rototill. The trees were then planted in the spring. With CRP Enhancement, herbicides were utilized for weed control, especially around the shrubs. When planting windbreaks, weed barrier fabric was used for weed control. Alan and Travis could plant 400 Eastern Red Cedar trees in an hour if all the equipment ran smoothly if planted in straight rows. Another thing they learned was replanting next to an existing windbreak was difficult due to the tree roots.

Travis recalled one year, they had to replant all the trees they had planted the previous spring due to tree death. The trees weren’t properly stressed before shipment. They looked great when they planted them, but they all died.

In 2003, trees were left from the conservation plantings, so Alan planted a windbreak around his property east of Stockton.

Alan and Travis noted that many of their large windbreak projects have won the Rooks County Windbreak Awards in the past, and they take great pride in that.

In 2020, Alan and Travis completed their final tree planting for the Rooks County Conservation District.

When asked if they had to do it all over again, Travis jokingly responded, “Don’t get old.”

Thank you to Alan Dix and Travis Jones for 22 years of tree planting efforts, and congratulations on being selected as the 2023 Kansas Bankers Association Windbreak Award Winners from Rooks County.

Article written by Rachael Brooke, Phillips- Rooks District Extension Agent