damage to trees

[Dean Hale]

Had permission to tap an area until owner spoke with some logger.
Using 5/16" treesaver taps. Is there any creditable info out there to support the tapping? Not going to tap in future regardless of info, just don't want the guy thinking I was hurting his trees.

Thanks

[v. Deschenes]

hello dean .. no it dont hurt the trees most of the time the hole heals less then a year or a year.. you use 5/16 i think you can use 7/16 too.. tapping trees only takes 10% of the sep it produce but if the tree is sick or insect attacks i would put less taps or not tap at all and if you have red maples tap those and let the sugar maples rest.. hope i helped..

[nas]

Tapping does reduce the lumber value of the tree. It basically makes the butt log pallet grade. The butt log is usually the best log in the tree. If the woodlot has ever been tapped before, then the damage is already done, and you might as well tap again.

Nick

[Mac_Muz]

Tapping does reduce the lumber value of the tree. It basically makes the butt log pallet grade. The butt log is usually the best log in the tree. If the woodlot has ever been tapped before, then the damage is already done, and you might as well tap again.

Nick

I agree......

Are these trees for sugar or are they for lumber?

I tap a tree that was broke off in an ice storm. I just wondered if it could be any good. The truck is maybe 35 feet to the break, and that tree cranks out sap. It will never be lumber.

The ice storm was in the late 90's.

OP mention you found old rusty nails in some of the trees... :D

[buckeye gold]

Having experience with both sugaring and timbering, here is my take. Yes it's true that tapping will not arm the tree as far as viability and living, but yes it's also true tapping affects lumber value. Tapping will stain the butt log a reddish tint. I'm not sure that reduces it to pallet lumber though. With that said almost any defect devalues a Sugar maple log from veneer or high grade. If it's ever had metal fence or nails, if it has knots or severe bark damage it will only be a saw log. So what I do is tap the trees I know already are imperfect and I leave my clear veneer trees alone. You also have to know your area. In some area the minerals in the ground will already stain trees. The point made earlier about whether the woods is a sugaring woods first or a timber growth. You need to establish that priority first. If you can make a quart of syrup/tap a year it will take many years for a tree to make you more in syrup than timber. However if your working with very old growth or very young growth the value is possibly more in syrup production. I would ask first if your talking a mature stand of Maples that are high grade or a younger stand. Timber harvest is a one time thing. Cut the tree and it's 60 -80 years to have an equal value tree grow. Let's say it's a high grade tree, you could get up to $1000.00 for it, but most likely will be in the $300.00-600.00 range. At $500.00 over 70 years to grow a new one that is approximately $7.00 a year earnings. If the life of a sugar operation is 30 years at say a quart and a half of syrup per tree (assuming many will have two taps) would give you approximately 11 gallons of syrup at say $40.00/gal equals $14.66 a year. So in the long run sugaring pays more, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to ruin the value of high grade trees that have already obtained optimum value, to me. However with that said, everything that is not veneer grade is up for tapping on my property.

One last suggestion: I'd never tap without a lease or written agreement spelling out there will be lumber damage.

Ok guys check my numbers and pick me apart. I pretty much used off the cuff numbers

[nas]

You do have to remember that after tapping the tree is still worth something, just not as much. So you could still add a couple of bucks a year to the tapping side of the equation.:)

Nick

[maple flats]

Cornell's Michael Farrel has a table online that addresses this very issue. It addresses several variables including current DBH, current log grade, growth rate, price paid per tap and several others. A current high value log can never make more for the owner as a tapped tree, but is most cases a less than perfect tree will yield more over the long run being tapped every year as opposed to saving it for timber.

[DrTimPerkins]

So in the long run sugaring pays more, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to ruin the value of high grade trees that have already obtained optimum value, to me. However with that said, everything that is not veneer grade is up for tapping on my property.

Every economic study I've seen (from the U.S. and Canada) shows that over the rotation age of a stand, maple production beats the timber value hands down....even on gravity. On vacuum there is absolutely no comparison...maple syrup production comes out way ahead. The best approach is, as stated, to assess any woods before tapping and mark possible veneer trees so they are NOT tapped. Otherwise...tap away.

[Flat47]

This may be getting off topic a bit, but I deal with the arguement of lost value all the time. There are two sides of it: the logger's sales pitch and the log buyers. They both want to maximize profit. Very often I hear loggers tell landowners that their woodlot has "gone by" (I hate that phrase) and is full of pulp wood and that they should log it now or the woodlot will be loosing money from die off. The scam is that the logger knows whose buying what and for how much and tries to pay the landowner lower. Log buyers do indeed pay more for speciality wood (curly maple, spalted maple, stained maple...). Good scalers buying wood by traditional stick scaling (not by weight) will take this into account.

Now all that being said, states have laws to address this. In Maine, the logger must provided all scale slips (wood sales reciepts) to the landowner and pay the landowner with 45 days. This way the landowner can see how much wood was sold and for how much, and then check that with their logging contract to make sure they're getting paid correctly. Forest Service law enforcement is pretty aggressive about this stuff, and for good reason: wood is valuable.

Dr. Perkins - I'm glad you are here to state and reinforce what we've always believed: long-term sugaring is more profitable than logging.

[argohauler]

I lost 2 bushes in 1998 because the loggers told the owners they shouldn't be tapped.

The one bush I'd been tapping 4 years and the other was just for one.

The one year bush, the owner had just bought it from his father and he wanted to recoup his expenses even though the father didn't want him to do it. I had permission to tap it the next season, then he got it logged that summer. The other owner decided that since the loggers were already there, might as well have his done.

For the most part they were old stand and both bushes were tapped for many years by a previous owner. They got $100 a tree back then.