NC Aacer Rubrum Advice: Interested in getting started

[Sugar Shack]

Hello everyone, I am in my early twenties and interested in planting about 300 Acer Rubrums in Harnett County, North Carolina and would like any advice. This project is for me to tinker with when I'm old and crusty. Plus I need some privacy wall for my property.

-Would Acer Rubrum produce more sap than Sugar Maple's considering the Acer Rubrum's should handle enviorment better than Sugar Maple's in NC?
-Where is a reliable place to pruchase Acer Rubrum's?
-Any good instruction's for growing Acer Rubrum's from seed?

Thanks

[happy thoughts]

Hello everyone, I am in my early twenties and interested in planting about 300 Acer Rubrums in Harnett County, North Carolina and would like any advice. This project is for me to tinker with when I'm old and crusty. Plus I need some privacy wall for my property.

-Would Acer Rubrum produce more sap than Sugar Maple's considering the Acer Rubrum's should handle enviorment better than Sugar Maple's in NC?
-Where is a reliable place to pruchase Acer Rubrum's?
-Any good instruction's for growing Acer Rubrum's from seed?
Thanks

Acer rubrum (red maple) can be finicky producers on gravity in my own short experience. When I used to tap them because that was all I had they drove me wild. Most of the big producers who tap them put them on vaccuum to get consistent yields. They tend to be less sweet and have a shorter season than sugars. The same sweetness /season length holds true for silvers from what I understand. Both reds and silvers like wetter soils. I don't have much experience with silvers but know reds will grow just about anywhere. In some places reds are considered invasive. I have a son who lives in asheville. I know silvers grow well there and are fast growers under the right conditions. If you want quicker cover you might want to consider silvers as well.

where to buy them- some states and/or conservation districts sell them cheaply. I haven't dealt with this particular company but their prices looked good when I was looking for winterberry.

http://www.coldstreamfarm.net/c-70-maple.aspx

Red maple is easy to grow from seed. Can't tell you about silvers but someone else might. I pick hundreds of red maple seedlings out of the spaces of my porch deck each spring. I hate those darn things lol. Reds produce seeds in the spring. Collect some "helicopters" this spring and toss them somewhere you want them to grow. Or throw them in some pots of soil. Trust me they will grow:)

Good luck and have fun :)

[Sugar Shack]

Thanks happy thoughts for your inputs.

[Sugar Shack]

Any thoughts on Florida maples (Acer barbatum Michx)?

[happy thoughts]

If you're looking for a tree that may be more adapted to your climate, to the best of my limited knowledge, it's not so much the species of maple but the climate that's going to be your limiting factor. You need good freeze/thaw cycles to get sweet sap flowing in the tree's xylem which is normally just a water transport system. You need lots of freezing nights with day temps above freezing. Without that, or with few days that meet that criteria, it won't be worth your trouble.

[happy thoughts]

sugar shack- I took a look at the weather for Benson NC which is probably near you. The historical highs/lows don't look good imho for any kind of maple sap flows during any of the colder months. Even going back to december there are no low temps below 30 and day temps are what I see where I live in May if we're lucky :) You want lows at least in the 20's. I'm not trying to discourage you. We should all plant more trees and you have nothing to lose by trying but unless your climate gets colder I just don't see any sort of maple syrup season from what I see there.

[SevenCreeksSap]

My boss lives right around Asheville and told me theres a sugarbush there that claims to be the southernmost syrup producer in the US. I would imagine they tap red maples because they are all over there, right?
so based on that you should be able to get some sap with the right weather as Happy Thoughts described. At least they grow fast enough you might be able to tap some in 15 years down there, maybe 20. This range map for sugar maples, if the link works, shows the range going all the way to the southern Tenn border. since youre along the same latitude and planting, I'd test some sugar maples too. never know, they might grow.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=sugar+maple+range&id=5A37EF27F072C17E8A79822AF112C289DAB3238C&FORM=IQFRBA#view=detail&id=366F232425A677B44308D59980AECDBE491E5563&selectedIndex=2

[325abn]

Is Harnett county still a dry county? Spent some time there in the 80s! :)

[Sugar Shack]

Thanks, I think I would still like to plant maple's, I just can't decide sugar or red maple? I would definatly say we get freezing temps here at night during the winters but definatly not like in Ohio (where I grew up).
Not sure if Harnett is a dry county, I live a county over, I doubt it though lol.

[maple flats]

Reds will likely do better that far south. Do you have enough cold weather to get a freeze thaw cycle to give you the sap flow?

[happy thoughts]

sugar shack- don't know if you saw the links I posted for you yesterday in another thread but it's about the sugar operation near Asheville that SevenCreek mentioned. Again, not trying to discourage you but that operation was in the highlands and it looks like you're on the piedmont at much lower elevation. But like I said in the following post you should contact them and see what advice they have to share.

http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?14840-Good-morning-from-the-jungles-of-South-Carolina!&p=212547#post212547

Good luck and plant some trees! :)