AREA FARM STANDS TALL AMONG TREE GROWERS.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

CEDAR FLAT - Bob Kintigh planted his first tree, a white pine, on his father's farm when he was 10 years old, the first of many roots he would sink into the ground.

Now 84, Kintigh has spent his life planting, cultivating and cutting down trees, and preaching the gospel of sustainable forestry.

"After my Lord and my wife and family, trees have been the principle interest in my life," he said.

That lifelong dedication to tree farming has now been recognized by the American Tree Farm System, which named Kintigh and his wife of 63 years, Margaret, National Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year.

To get there, the Kintighs first had to win county, state and regional competitions. The award recognizes outstanding sustainable forest management on privately owned forest land.

Kintigh, a former three-term state senator, said he grows 15 to 20 varieties of trees on his tree farm east of Springfield, predominantly Douglas fir and ponderosa pine, as well as western red cedar. He still manages the timber destined for mills, and logged it himself until he was 75. His sons manage the other branches of the enterprise: a seedling nursery and Christmas trees.

Kintigh jokes that the National Tree Farmer of the Year award is the "Heisman Trophy" to go along with his "Cy Young Award" - when a Douglas fir from his place was named Grand Champion National Christmas Tree in 1992 and earned a place in the Blue Room at the White House.

Turning serious, Kintigh said the award and his life's work are not about preservation, and go beyond just growing Christmas trees.

"It's production oriented," he said. "It's about producing renewable wood products by American families for American families."

Growing up on his father's dairy farm in western Pennsylvania, Kintigh soon figured out what he didn't want to do with his life.

"I milked more cows than you ever saw," he said. "I decided I didn't want to make my living sitting under a cow."

He went to Penn State University and earned a bachelor's degree in forestry, then served a stint in the Navy during World War II, where he was an officer on a destroyer in the Pacific. After he got out, he headed west and got a master's degree in forestry at the University of California, Berkeley.

Kintigh spent a summer working in Fremont National Forest in south central Oregon, long enough for him to decide he didn't want a career working for the Forest Service. He landed a job with a consulting forestry firm in Eugene, doing timber cruising and appraisals and keeping an eye out for a piece of land he could call his own.

In 1957, he bought 160 acres of open fields, brush and stumps, as well as many stands of 15-year-old natural Douglas fir, at Cedar Flat, east of Springfield, which he later dubbed Kintigh's Mountain Home Ranch.

Christmas trees, cattle, nursery stock and consulting work paid the bills in the early years before his timber matured. He first started logging his land in 1962, but didn't do substantial cuts until the 1970s, and then really ramped up his harvest in the 1990s, he said.

Along the way, Kintigh developed a management plan that ensured a sustained yield of timber.

Today, Kintigh owns 250 acres, including 160 acres south of Cottage Grove. He sets aside 10 percent for roads and wildlife reserves, leaving about 225 acres.

It takes about 40 years for his timber to reach a size that mills want, so Kintigh said that if he cuts about 5 acres a year, he can cut and replant for a constantly renewing forest.

Kintigh is proud of his stewardship. He has led dozens of tours for schoolchildren, fellow tree farmers and foreign visitors over the years, and knows his land like the back of his hand.

He and his wife also grow more than 700 varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas on their land.

Here, walking with a limp, he leads a visitor along a skinny skid road into a towering stand of 65-year-old Douglas firs, the only sound the wind blowing through the treetops.

He puts his hand on a typical tree - about 22 inches in diameter and 125 feet tall - and says it contains about 1,000 board feet of lumber. "Sixteen of these could build the average house," he said.

Over here is a small oak savanna, set aside for a natural area. The wet, shallow, rocky soil is unsuitable for Douglas fir, so he just leaves it in its natural state, he said.

And here, up at the top of the hill, is an area he clear-cut last year, where slash piles await the torch. To the east is an area he logged in 2002, where some fledgling firs have reached 10 feet.

He leaves snags and poor-grade trees behind when he logs and nails a yellow placard to each that reads `Wildlife tree - Do not cut."

Steve Woodard, a Cottage Grove tree farmer and former Oregon State University Extension forester, has known Kintigh for 40 years and nominated him for the national award. Woodard said the national award is well deserved for Kintigh, long an innovator and leader in the industry.

"He's well qualified in many different ways," he said. "He just plain takes good care of the land."