Sugar Maple Spacing

[MapleMounder]

We live down a 1,300’ lane. We have open tillable farm fields down each side. We have planted Green Mountain Sugar Maples 35’ apart down the lane in a single row. After looking at Cornell’s website we are wondering if we could add another tree in between each one. Cornell’s site says “The best spacing is about one tree in an area measuring 30 feet x 30 feet”. Are we reading that wrong or doesn’t mean we could add more trees? We obviously want full crowns for optimum sap. Thanks for any help!

[adk1]

We live down a 1,300’ lane. We have open tillable farm fields down each side. We have planted Green Mountain Sugar Maples 35’ apart down the lane in a single row. After looking at Cornell’s website we are wondering if we could add another tree in between each one. Cornell’s site says “The best spacing is about one tree in an area measuring 30 feet x 30 feet”. Are we reading that wrong or doesn’t mean we could add more trees? We obviously want full crowns for optimum sap. Thanks for any help!

How many have you planted so far and what size caliper/dia are they right now?

[happy thoughts]

We live down a 1,300’ lane. We have open tillable farm fields down each side. We have planted Green Mountain Sugar Maples 35’ apart down the lane in a single row. After looking at Cornell’s website we are wondering if we could add another tree in between each one. Cornell’s site says “The best spacing is about one tree in an area measuring 30 feet x 30 feet”. Are we reading that wrong or doesn’t mean we could add more trees? We obviously want full crowns for optimum sap. Thanks for any help!


I'd say no unless you add a second staggered row with no tree closer than 30 ft from another. If you add another tree between the ones you have then each tree will only have an area measuring 171/2 ft x 171/2 ft.

[TF Maple]

I think if you draw it up on a piece of paper you will find you have the correct spacing now, so you can't add trees inbetween. If the space around the tree should be 30 x 30 feet then you have 15 feet on each side of the tree, The next tree also needs 15 feet so that means each tree is 30 feet apart.

[Brian Ledoux]

add more around the border of the rest of the field!

[MapleMounder]

Thanks for all of the responses guys. The majority of the ones we have planted were 1”diameter, 6’ tall whips we planted about 8 years ago. I thought I had the right spacing but then reading the Cornell article for some reason I started to think that I was wrong and I could plant more in between. Of course it was 2 in the morning when I read it because I have been bitten by this Maple Bug thing. We will plant more trees in the pasture instead of the lane then, we will just have to protect them so the horses can’t snack on them. Regardless of what I plant I probably won’t be able to tap them but the next generation will. I looked into RPM trees but really haven’t heard anything definite about their success, additionally a tree that you could go from seedling to tapable size in 8 or 10 years would concern me about its life span. Thanks again for the input. :)

[Timber Juice]

How close are the trees to your actual lane?
Do you own the farm land on the other side?
You could have a lane thru a tunnel of trees.
If you were to plant a second row 25' away and staggered, the trees would be 30' apart if the first trees are 35' apart now.
Farmers tend to not want to till close to tree roots.

If the fast growing trees only live half as long that is still two lifetimes.


Goodluck