Might Leave it alone

[adk1]

Have read the NA Maple Producers manual, have asked the questions on this board and I think that I have come to the conclusion that I will just leave my virgin sugarbush primarily alone.

I went behind the house to look around again, easier to see with the leaves off. walking through the 3' of snow looking up i would say that 90% of all of my maple trees crowns are touching other trees, both maple and other. The entire bush is on a side hill, not to steep to climb but steep enough. I ahve a mix of some very large pine and hemlock in there. I jsut got to thinking that it would be a huge undertaking to thin the trees out, plus, when droppign the trees it is inevitable that they will land on others that I want to keep and get hung up alot.

I will be cuttign out some of the smaller non maple trees and others just to lessen the competition of the roots and nutrients.

Thoughts?

[red maples]

If you start in one area you can slowly thin larger trees. You might hit a few maples sometimes there is no getting around that but if you do it slowly and methodically use a come along or winch to put tension on a tree iff necessary, but use extreme caution you can get by with little damage. It all depends on how experienced you are at felling trees. Starting with smaller trees is good practice. after a while you can drop them with in a foot of your target!!!

On the other hand don't stress about it...if you want to leave it alone you will make perfectly good syrup just the same.

Just remember you don't have to do it all at once. If its your land and Your maple business is on the kinda small there is no real hurry then take your time thin a tree here and tree there. beside if you take too much to fast you will do more damage than good.

[Ausable]

Have read the NA Maple Producers manual, have asked the questions on this board and I think that I have come to the conclusion that I will just leave my virgin sugarbush primarily alone.

I went behind the house to look around again, easier to see with the leaves off. walking through the 3' of snow looking up i would say that 90% of all of my maple trees crowns are touching other trees, both maple and other. The entire bush is on a side hill, not to steep to climb but steep enough. I ahve a mix of some very large pine and hemlock in there. I jsut got to thinking that it would be a huge undertaking to thin the trees out, plus, when droppign the trees it is inevitable that they will land on others that I want to keep and get hung up alot.

I will be cuttign out some of the smaller non maple trees and others just to lessen the competition of the roots and nutrients.

Thoughts?

adk1 --- Hi again my friend -- This is the year -- no more planning -- forget about having everything perfect - it ain't gonna happen - nice maybe - but not perfect. Ok here is the plan - get the spiles and pails to tap say 10 to 15 trees this year and do it. You know how to make maple syrup - You helped do it and have read everything ever printed on the subject....
so do it and the rest will all fall into place..... Dang You scare me --- Almost like a young version of me.. This is the year Pal ------ Mike

[Buckshot]

Our "maple bush" is also like yours - mainly a forest with many types of trees mixed in with the maples. We enjoy our property as is and won't be doing much to enhance or thin it. But that doesn't mean that we can't put in some taps in our "less than ideal" maple trees and make great syrup. It's fun, definately addictive and gives us something worthy to do in the late winter/early spring. The only downside is that your trees will not produce as much sap as the large, well spaced and big crowned ones will. But, really, who cares. It's all about having fun and making a bit of syrup.

[Flat47]

I vote for thinning it. But...do it slow. Just pick away at it a little at a time. Your maples will be better off in the long run. Thinning is a funny thing. It can be a real stressful thing to do (to both man and tree), but really helps the maples. You may not see any effects for a couple of years, but they will respond. Do it right and you've got an excellent sugarbush and firewood and maybe some sawlogs to sell. Do it wrong or not at all and your maple will suffer from stress or wounds. I won't let anybody do any cutting in our woodlot because nobody but a sugarmaker knows how to care for a sugarbush. I do the cutting. I spread out the tops and skid out as much as can for firewood. I cut up the tops and slash to get them down on the forest floor to decompose faster. I choose what stays and what goes, and in the end our woodlot looks pretty darn good, and the maples are thriving.

To get back on track, thin as you can and know that your efforts will help the stand in the many years to come.

[adk1]

thanks for the post guys, unfortunatly Mike, I wont get to it this year:( dont even have anything to evap on. I will just have to be content helping out the folk as usual, at least I will be suragin! maybe next year!

[moeh1]

I'd try to get a DEC Forester or a Master Forest Owner from NYFOA (cornell trained) to come out and give you an educated opinion about options. Some of the huge pine/hemlock might be past prime and they willl make a mess if they do come down. If you do it in a controlled fashon, might be ahead in the long run. I'm facing the same dilemna in a young forest, the big garbage trees need to come out, but they are doing some damage on the way down. :mad:My goal is take out everything I don't want, then everything that they damage and see whats left.
Marty

[TF Maple]

thanks for the post guys, unfortunatly Mike, I wont get to it this year:( dont even have anything to evap on. I will just have to be content helping out the folk as usual, at least I will be suragin! maybe next year!

Why not collect sap from your trees and take it to the people you are helping? Then they will have more syrup and you will have some of your own too.

[Ausable]

TF Maple -- In my humble opinion - that is a great idea - Just think adk1 - maple syrup made from the sap You gathered from Your trees. Really - it is your business what you do or don't do -- but -- suddenly - You will be an old geezer like me and wonder where the heck the time went - and still planning someday to make your own syrup -- only thing is the somedays are all used up --- that is the point I'm trying to make - don't plan to long --- Life flys by. --- may your life be long and happy and your syrup extra sweet ---- Mike

[adk1]

so true so true

[red maples]

Go to home depot pick up a turkey fryer. or find a restaurant supply store and pick up a used roasting pan or hotel pans. collect up a few pallets. get a few concrete blocks, and git R done!!! My first year I had a friend of a friend that had some older plastic taps still 5/16 bought a roll of tubing $50 got a used roasting pan in good shape $25 bought soem concrete block and a few patio blocks for a base I think that was $20 bought like 5 real maple jugs. and collected a bunch of junk wood out of my woods. cut up the old x-mas tree. what ever I could find. and made 2-3 gallons of syrup.

I spent maybe $150 and a few hours getting things together. my wife thought I was nuts going from window to window to see sap dripping from the tubing into 5 gallon water jugs. spent weekends just boiling sap and sitting out in the sun drinking boiling sodas and enjoying the sun on my face and I put some wood in there every few minutes. Check my website it has a picture of then and now what a difference a year makes.

the next year I spent $10K on a sugarhouse, evap, jugs, tubing, vac/releaser etc,etc,etc. Had a lousy year like everyone else. Worked on a few things this is my 3rd year!!! I have about 1200 ft mainline, who know how much blue tubing, 280 something taps on vac, 40ish on gravity and about 10 buckets, on a 2x6.

Don't stress it man just do it!!!

[Ausable]

Dang Red Maples --- Looked at Your site and WOW! In One year -- I'm really impressed and also a little scared...... What if adk1 gets the Bug and follows your lead or does something even bigger and grander.... Now in walks his Missus and finds out what it costs and as She loads her shotgun with oo buckshot wants to know "adk1 - honey - before I deal with You ---who put this idea in your head?" --- and he says "Ausable made me do it" ---I'm a gonner -- heck - I can't even walk fast anymore... ----Red Maples -- adk1 is all yours ----I'm moving further North ----- lol

[red maples]

Thanks man alot of work as we all know!!!!

I got the OK from my Wife to use money from our savings!!! It worked out good because she spent (not as much as me) a bunch of money on her art stuff too. I'll pay it back someday. a little at a time. already paid back about $4K of it. and this year I had to put some of my money into the business but not like the inital investments. After this season it should be self suficiant with a little extra left over...at least I hope anyway.

Glad I am over here in NH far away from adk1's Wife:lol:

[moeh1]

Adk, read the Sand County Almanac sometime. You are only borrowing that woods from your children. See what a forester thinks you should do for the long term then see if you can live with that.:)
Marty

[adk1]

man you guys are a riot! Thanks for the well wish's. Actually, I ahve read that book before, back in college I think. But cant tell you much about it anymore

[adk1]

Picked up a roll of blue flagging and red flagging. Gonna walk through the sugarbush when the snow gets packed down this weekend and start flagging the sugar maples with the blue and the red maples with the red. Once I do that I will ahve a better idea of what needs to be thinned out that will benefit the maples the best. I will walk to each flagged maple, look up and whatever is touching its crown is coming down. I will just move from tree to tree and hopefully by the end of the summer I will have my first intermediate cut done. The hardwoods will go into the house woodstove and the softwoods will be split in longer smaller dia sticks to be used in the evap when I get it. That is my plan this summer. Lord willing I may even start to be able to buy some equipment! gotta start someplace

[skillet]

Contact the nydec. That is what we did. we have 30 acres of woods. They will come out and set up a forest stewardship plan free of charge. They will mark 7 acres of timber free per year that need to be thinned. We had 5 acres(mostly sugar maple) marked 4 years ago. We have been removing about 7 cords of wood per year. He said to spread out the thinning over 3-5 years. Almost every tree he had marked to remove looked ok to the untrained eye. However once we cut it down you could see 90% of them were diseased or dying from the inside out. The area we are thinning has mostly pole sized timber and is over stocked. Very few tree are over 12"most in the 5-8" range.
Do yourself a favor and contact them. The funny thing is the forester that came out suggested that i could tap the maple trees for syrup that is were it all stared for me 4 years ago. We have not tapped any trees in the area we are thinning. We tap about 50 larger trees located in a differant area of the farm. At this time our homemade block arch is at max capacity with 85 taps. Maybe in the future we will increase. This year we are only going to boil two weekends instead of 4 or 5. It started to become more like work last year. We hope to get back to the first year when we had a blast sapping.

Live in pa farm in sw ny

[adk1]

Wow, your the first person on this site to ever say that making syrup was more like work! haha

[adk1]

Well yesterday a spent a few hours walking my "sugarbush". I tied blue flagging around all of the sugar maples and red flagging around the few soft maples that I have. This will make it easy to identify. My next step in the coming weeks will be to goto each tree, look up and cut whatever adjacent tree is touching the crown of each maple. I will also take out some of the other hardwood trees for my house this year. I typically take wood from farther in my land but I figured why not kill two birds with one stone and take what I need from my sugarbush area instead. Seems like I always run out of time so this should work. Any of hte pine/hemlock that I take down will be bucked and split for sapwood. This is all located within 200 yards and less of my future sugarhouse/current garage. It wont be easy since its all on a slight hill but I can get my atv and trailer to any of it so I should be set.