Creating the dream sugar bush.

[whitetail farms]

this summer I will start thinning out my woods to plant 100 sugar maple seedling and a few of those sweet silver maples if i can get me hands on them,I will cut out the bigger hemlock and thin out the under story then start the planting,and in 50 years I will be tapping the trees I planted witch I think is pretty neat im just not sure how many trees to cut out of the woods I want to open it up enough to let the seedling thrive but not to much so the wind wont blow down my mature trees that are already there but I have to get as much cut out this year as I can cause I plan to put up tubeing this summer as well.....but this should be a very fun project and I cant wait to get it stated......its a good thing im young and will hopefully be able to tap the trees im going to plant best wish for the rest of the season,nick

[spencer11]

I would recomend not buying all of your trees, go out somewhere and dig up small maples, so then if they die your not out any money

[Burnt sap]

Whitetail, We became a certified tree farm this past February for our sugar bush. After hiring a forester and about 350.00 dollars we had a basal area study done and a management plan written. Until you really know what the Basal area of your woodlot is I would not recommend just going in and cutting and thinning trees. You want to maintain some habitat trees as well for pests and birds so they leave you healthy trees alone. Feel free to ask questions I just spent a year getting our woodlot on the path to a healthy forest.

[whitetail farms]

okay thanks guy i have good friend who is a forester and hes gonna come take a look at the woods for me after maple season this year

[Burnt sap]

Lucky you! That's a good friend to have.

[ennismaple]

Lucky you! That's a good friend to have.

Definitely! I also have a buddy who's a forester and does tree trimming / removals Monday to Friday. On weekends he loves to come trim trees for kicks and giggles.

If my day job didn't get in the way I'd have 10 acres of transplanted maples in the ground this fall. It's on my list - but life keeps getting in the way!

[maplekid]

white tail farms- i wouldnt go crazy with the thinning, reason behind me saying that is that if you open a very large spot,the sun will actually scald the trees that are remaining in that cut out area. this will result in poor tree health and/or dead trees. the first sign is big cracks and crown die off. deffinantley consult a forester as you may do more harm than help. just my .2 cents.

[whitetail farms]

yeah i will deff have a forester come take a look but how long will it be before a 2 foot tall seedling is tappable size and im not sure if i know how to ID a small maple do the leaves still have the 5 lobes and the branches are still opposite?

[JuniperHillSugar]

My dream sugarbush would be one that I live to see operate. I have been thinning in favor of good crop trees of any type, and slowly releasing the sugar maples. The result is a good boost in growth rate. I have been tapping 30 year old sugar maples that were set out by my grandfather in a hedgerow on his farm.

[maple flats]

I also have a written management plan but have not yet kept up enough to officially get the tree farm designation. I'm working towards it.
For thinning, as I'll bet the Forester will tell you, only open up 1-2 sides of the crop trees at a time. (to open up means remove the tree(s) that touch the canopy of the crop tree, a crop tree is any tree you are trying to save, not just the sugar maples). Then as the canopy fills in to occupy the space created, open another face or 2. This takes time. If you open too much at once, the area that then gets sun to the ground starts filling in very quickly with berry bushes and then a progression of softer hardwoods and softwoods such as hemlock, poplar and others you would rather not get. At the same time, do not totally clear the forest floor for planting nor the encourage native sugar growth. The debris and little brushy clutter protects the new desireables from deer, rabbits etc. You will get less tree loss when less clearing is done. Don't treat this like your lawn with it clean around the trees you want to mature.
If you have a good sugar maple stand now, you may well have all the new seedlings and young stock you need. When at all possible try to protect them and don't move any more that absolutely necessary. It is always faster to leave it where it took root from seed, when you transplant you lose a year to 3 years before it gets back to the condition it was before you moved it.
By the way, if you want to sell the hemlock logs PM me, I'll see if getting them hauled that far (to Oneida, NY, 26 miles E of Syracuse) is worth it. I have a sawmill and am looking for hemlock to build my new home.

[PerryW]

I
only open up 1-2 sides of the crop trees at a time.

My logger gave me the same advice, but he gave me a different reason. He told me that opening up all 4 sides of your maples will heat up the tree too much and cause Sun Scald. But if you gradually open up the maple trees, the bark will toughen up and be able to handle the increased sun.

[whitetail farms]

well I broke ground on the sugarbush project today starting clearing out all the little crap trees behind my sugar house and not even 10 minutes i got my bobcat buried in mud and ad to call the neighbor with his backhoe to get me out once i finnish clearing the little trees out i will begin to thin the bush i think im going to girdle most of them to avoid any damage to othere maples,but i still havent got my forester to come take a look

[ToadHill]

Whitetail,

You really shouldn't be in your bush with equipment this time of year. The ground is to soft and you will cause to much root damage resulting in sap streak disease. Also, the bark on the maples will be slipping and anything that touches them can cause extensive damage to the trunk. Do your chainsaw work now and do the equipment work once the ground dries out or better yet freezes.

[can'twaitforabigrun]

Here is some great advice on thinning your sugarbush from the editor of Northern Woodlands magazine. He has composed a well written blog the past three seasons detailing the wrking of his 2700 tap operation. "We’ve been managing this particular sugarbush for over 30 years, a fact that makes us feel both accomplished and exasperated. There are areas that we’re very proud of, areas where we’re able to see the fruits of our forestry work. Little 8- and 10-inch maples that were released in the 1980s have today come into their own as crop trees. The areas we’re especially proud of are the ones that feature mature, well-spaced, well-plumbed trees that are surrounded by hundreds of maple saplings. We feel like good stewards, then. We can imagine someone tapping this next generation of trees long after we’re gone. The flip side of the coin is coming to terms with our learning curve and making peace with the things we didn’t do right. My father, who’s the brains behind the forestry work, gets frustrated by the stands that he didn’t thin aggressively enough. (This brings to mind former Bennington County Forester Jim White’s mantra that no sugarmaker should ever thin his own sugarbush because it’s just too hard to kill your darlings.)
Here is the link to that blog post: http://northernwoodlands.org/editors_blog/article/dispatch-from-the-sugarwoods-day-11/ and to the current blog http://northernwoodlands.org/editors_blog/article/dispatch-sugarwoods-2013

[whitetail farms]

Randy ,im working on clearing a part of my woods that has no maple in it I want to clear this part out for a place to stack logs and maybe plant some strawberry,the nearest maple is about 40 feet away from where im working,will that tree be okay?

[ToadHill]

I don't know the precise distance to avoid damage, but I know years ago we made the mistake of clearing in and around a small stand of very nice maples with a small dozed. Within 5-6 years about 50% of them were dead or dying. Maples have very fine hairlike capillary roots and they are very susceptible to root damage and soil compaction. If you've ever been on a log job that was done when the ground was wet look at the maples along the skid road about 5-7 years later. You'll see some with obvious stem and root damage, but look at the crowns of the other ones. You'll probably notice a bunch of dead limbs and crown die back. They first discovered the impacts of soil compaction and roots damage in sugarbushes that farmers were pasturing their cows in. If you do have to run equipment in your sugarbush it's best to avoid times when the ground is wet.

[PerryW]

sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Problem is for us sugarmakers is we can't log in the winter because we need to have the saplines ready for sugaring. I had a logger in my 18 acre bush starting early may (after road bans) and he worked a couple days a week until mid-fall. He tried to stay away from the maples and only a couple scars. Definitely don't go with mechanized logging equipment (cable skidder or tractor).

[ToadHill]

Here's the link to a USDA research paper on sapstreak disease.

http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/research_papers/pdfs/scanned/OCR/ne_rp675.pdf