Four Illinois farmers have been selected as 2015 Master Farmers by Prairie Farmer magazine. The four will be honored for their exceptional community service and farming abilities at a ceremony in Springfield, Ill., on Wednesday, March 11.

Award recipients are Bill Christ, Metamora (Woodford County); Randy DeSutter, Woodhull (Knox County); Don Schrader, Waterloo (Monroe County); and John Werries, Chapin (Morgan County).

Candidates are nominated by farmers, agribusiness leaders and agricultural extension specialists from throughout the state.

Four farmers who are outstanding in both production and community service will be honored in ceremony March 11.

Judges for the awards were Garry Niemeyer, 2010 Master Farmer, Auburn; Gerry Bertrand, First National Bank, Nokomis; Dan Schaefer, Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association; Aaron Hager, University of Illinois; Holly Spangler, Penton Agriculture; Josh Flint, Prairie Farmer editor.

Prairie Farmer first offered the award in 1925, when Editor Clifford Gregory established it as a way to recognize Illinois farmers for something more than just farming skills. Gregory felt the award would help give farm people a greater sense of "pride and permanence."

Flint said Prairie Farmer continues to present the awards annually because of the important contributions farmers make to Illinois agriculture and their local communities.

"Prairie Farmer sponsors the Master Farmer awards program to recognize farmers who excel not only in farming but also in community service, family commitment and leadership," he said. "The farmers we've honored over the years represent a gallery of the greatest in Illinois agriculture."

Related: Master Farmers: The Best of the Best (Class of 2014)

Some Master Farmers serve in state and national farm leadership positions. Others chair prestigious boards or serve with honor at the highest levels of government. Still others build their farms or businesses to regional or national prominence.

However, the vast majority merely serves their communities – building churches, chairing little-known but important committees, organizing harvest for a stricken neighbor – and continuing the service-minded commitment that earned them the Master Farmer distinction in the first place.

Between 1925 and 1937 the magazine named 97 Master Farmers, Flint said. The program was discontinued in the '30s due to the Depression, but Prairie Farmer revived it in 1968. Altogether, more than 300 Illinois people have been named Master Farmer or Honorary Master Farmer, including the four named this year.

Prairie Farmer is published 12 times a year for Illinois farm families. Established in 1841, it is the oldest continuously published farm periodical in the United States. GROWMARK, Inc., is a financial sponsor of the award. Like the Master Farmer award, the GROWMARK system was born during the 1920s, when farmer cooperatives first organized the Illinois Farm Supply Co. Today, the brand is known as FS.

Meet Bill Christ: Preserve the family farm legacy

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BILL CHRIST: PRESERVE THE FAMILY FARM LEGACY

Ask Bill Christ about the biggest lesson he's learned in his farming career and he doesn't miss a beat: "Hard work and perseverance."

It would've been easy to throw in the towel in the early '80s, he says. But Bill and his wife, Sandy, were determined to do whatever they could to make sure their Metamora farm survived. 

"Heritage is one thing we try to instill in our kids. Farming isn't just about making money," he explains. "We take care of what we've had so the next generations can benefit from it, too."

In those days, "doing whatever they could" meant working off the farm, for a lot of farmers. The local insurance agency management position opened up at that time and Bill was encouraged to take it, with assurances that he could both farm and sell insurance. 

Thirty years later, he's still managing the Country Financial office in Metamora and running their farming operation, which has grown to include 1,500 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, grapes and a small herd of registered Hereford cattle.

Bill follows a three-year rotation of corn, soybeans and wheat on all their timber soil farms, and uses a combination of no-till and conservation tillage. He's pattern tiled his own ground and worked to install a variety of conservation practices, including waterways, buffer strips and other measures to manage the water runoff from very nearby Metamora. 

Bill has plans to expand his registered Hereford herd to 50 cows in the near future. The Christ family also operates a trucking company with another local farmer; CW Logistics delivers seed and hauls grain and fertilizer for local farmers. In 2008, they planted 2.5 acres of French wine grapes and will sell wine under their own label, Black Partridge, this year. 

Over the years, Sandy has helped at the insurance office and partnered with Bill in all aspects of their businesses.

"We are cognitive in our belief that in those tough times, we wouldn't have made it without our faith," Bill says. "We try to take credit and honor and glory, but we're thankful and we know what we have is because of our faith in Him."

Meet Randy DeSutter: Family, adaptation are keys to success

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RANDY DESUTTER: FAMILY, ADAPTATION ARE KEYS TO SUCCESS

Some might argue that joining the family farm in 1979 wasn't ideal timing.

Randy DeSutter firmly agrees. "It was pretty tough, when interest rates were high and land was worth half what you paid for it. Grain prices were terrible. Anybody that survived the '80s did pretty well, in my book."

Family is first on the DeSutter's Woodhull operation. Randy and his wife, Suzanne, a stay-at-home mom, farm together and are parents to Matthew and Kristin. Today Randy farms with his brothers Mike and Jim (who also works as a bank examiner), and with Randy's son, Matthew, and Jim's son, Drew. Randy's father, Maurice DeSutter, was named a Master Farmer in 1982 and still helps in the operation.

While there are few fond memories of the 1980s, Randy credits government programs with getting him started in no-till. Early drills were ineffective at best, but the John Deere 750 drill was a game changer for them. It worked well, and soon the DeSutters realized there was no appreciable yield difference between where they no-tilled and where they didn't.

"With no-till, it was less labor, less equipment and you could farm more. We no-till everything today, even corn-on-corn," Randy says.

In addition to 100% no-till, Randy and his family have installed countless waterways, drop boxes and block chutes to reduce erosion, and enrolled nearly five miles of buffer strips in the Conservation Reserve Program last fall, to protect creeks.

Until 1994, the DeSutters fed 1,000 head of cattle a year. Until 1995, they finished 2,000 to 4,000 head of feeder pigs a year. They exited both businesses due to aging facilities and location. They converted their silos to grain storage, and use barns for equipment storage.

Off the farm, Randy has become known as a voice for production agriculture, and just as often, a voice of reason. Randy has been involved with local education foundation efforts, and served on the Knox County Board for nine years – retiring from it only when meetings began to conflict with his children's sports schedules. He's served Illinois agriculture in three commodities (beef, corn and soybeans) and has worked at the national level on behalf of both beef and soybeans. He's also a proud and loyal University of Illinois alumni, and a former Illinois State FFA officer.

Meet Don Schrader: Committed to the community

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DON SCHRADER: COMMITTED TO THE COMMUNITY

Whether he's playing Santa Claus or serving as president of the Monroe County Fair, Waterloo farmer Don Schrader is truly a man of the community.

Schrader has hosted numerous groups on his farm over the years. His favorite farm visit came in 2013. Don and wife, Karen, hosted five-year-old Joe-Joe as part of the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that develops from immature nerve cells, Joe-Joe's wish was to be a farmer and a cowboy. The Schraders happily fulfilled the farmer part of his wish.

The Schrader farm turned 150 years old last year. Don's great-great-grandparents, Christian and Caroline Meyer, were the original homesteaders in 1864. Don and Karen purchased the farm from his parents, Victor and Esther, in 1987. Don represents the fifth generation to farm the same ground.

Today, the Schrader farm is primarily a cash grain operation. For about 15 years, Don has focused on conservation farming. Fertility recommendations are based on harvest data collected from previous years. All fertilizer is applied using variable rate technology. Soybeans, including the double-crop soybeans, are no-till. Don does some minimum tillage prior to corn and wheat planting.

Don met his wife Karen on a blind date that was set up by mutual friends. Karen grew up just north of Don in St. Clair County near Mascoutah. Her parents were also farmers. She brought two children, Amy and Mike Kolweier, to the marriage. Amy works for The Maschhoffs as a grain originator. She'll finish her masters in crop sciences this spring. Mike is a mortgage consultant. He and wife, Sarah, have three children, twins Luke and Lilly, and Tessa.

After Karen's father died in 1976, her mom began renting out the farm. Things continued in that manner until the mid-2000s. Then, two of Karen's nephews, Andy and Doug Sax, started talking about working the land in their spare time. They each have their own construction businesses.

"The boys started throwing hints my way that they might want to start farming, but they needed some help," Don remembers. "I'm glad they asked me to be part of this. And, their grandma is happy to have family back working the ground."

Meet John Werries: Conservation farming for future generations

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JOHN WERRIES: CONSERVATION FARMING FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

From conservation farming to community involvement, if something is worth doing, Chapin farmer John Werries does it right.

The Werries family first put down roots in what is now northwest Morgan County in the late 1800s. Herman and Maria Werries emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1888. John's father Leland grew up on a farm that was two miles south of the current home farm. In 1951, Leland and wife Virginia were able to purchase 200 acres that are the core of the current farmstead.

Today, John and son Dean's farm is best described as a corn-intensive, conservation-oriented operation. John and Dean strip till continuous corn on 3,500 acres. With the help of RTK, they place the strip three inches from the previous year's crop. Every other year's corn rows are in the same strip. On the remaining 300 acres, they strip till the corn and no till the beans in a typical corn/bean rotation.

Immediately following harvest, they begin seeding cover crops with an air seeder. This is their third year in cover crops. John started down the path to add another erosion control measure. As time went on, he saw the benefits of nutrient sequestration, bio tillage and increased organic matter. After the soil temperature cools down to 50 degrees, they make their strips while applying part of the nitrogen. Lastly, the Werries family split their 250-lb nitrogen budget over five applications.

John and wife Ruth have three children and 11 grandchildren. Their oldest son, Dan, is a global director for finance for the Dow Chemical Company. He and wife, Jennie, have four children. They live in Michigan.

Dean, the middle son, lives just down the road from John and Ruth. He and wife, Karen, have three children. Curt and his wife, Amanda, have four children. He is a police officer in Quincy.

Over the years, John has been a pillar of the community and the industry. The massive conservation changes John has made over the years are indicative of a man working hard to pass the farm onto the next generation. This Master Farmer knows no greater reward than one day hopefully watching his grandchildren bring in the corn crop.

Editor's note: Be sure to check out the March issue of Prairie Farmer for full profiles of each of the 2015 Master Farmers!