Average Production for Red Maples

[jrgagne99]

I've heard that for Sugar Maples, 0.25 gal/tap is "average" production for a decent year, also known as a "Full Crop".

Does anyone know if there is a similar rule of thumb for Red Maples?

How do the numbers change for vacuum systems vs. gravity?

As a side note, I just saw that UVM Proctor consideres 0.5 gal/tap to be their "Full Crop" standard.

[Russell Lampron]

Subscribing to this thread to see what others have to say. I tap mostly reds and am close to .25 gpt this season. I am close enough so that 1 more run will put me over the .25 gpt. I got .4 gpt in 2011 which was a record year. I generally get less than the .25 gpt for one reason another. Mostly it is weather related but releaser and vacuum problems and accidents with tank valves have also been contributing factors. The reds normally don't produce as much sugar as a sugar maple and also give less sap so I feel that .25 gpt is a good number for them. Other producers around me are at 20 plus gpt of sap from there sugars while I am at 15 gpt of sap from my reds even though my tubing system is tight and I am pulling 25.5 hg of vacuum.

[mapleack]

I tap mostly reds, probably 80%. When on gravity I never got over one pint of syrup per tap. Now on vacuum no higher than 22" this is my fourth season in a row at 0.33 gallon of syrup per tap, just about done for this year and have gotten 31 gallons of sap per tap!!!! :) I think I'd hit 0.4 if I had high vac.

[psparr]

I am on buckets. Only my second year. I have not kept track of sap totals however I have quite a few reds that have given at least 30-40 gallons. I tapped Jan 3 and quit last week.

[jrgagne99]

Just to update where I'm at...

I run 140 taps at about 25 inHg vacuum with tight lines and right now I'm at about 0.22 gal/tap. Hopefully we get one more week of sugaring weather...

In 2011, I made 0.4 gal/tap, just like Russ. In 2012, it was about 0.12 gal/tap.

[Russell Lampron]

Just to update where I'm at...

I run 140 taps at about 25 inHg vacuum with tight lines and right now I'm at about 0.22 gal/tap. Hopefully we get one more week of sugaring weather...

In 2011, I made 0.4 gal/tap, just like Russ. In 2012, it was about 0.12 gal/tap.

We're doing about the same this year too! I need to make about 6 more gallons plus what I make when I finish what's in the evaporator to be at .25 gpt for this season. I was at .16 gpt in 2012.

[Amber Gold]

We run about 50% reds and are ~30gpt of sap and 0.5gpt of syrup on mostly 3 year old tubing.

[PerryW]

I started on red maples with about 25 wooden buckets on red maple woods trees in 1968, but I was only 8 years old, so I don't remember the totals. I do remember we made syrup that year, but, we sold the wooden buckets for $5 each (antique shop) and we could buy nice galvanized buckets for $1.

So the next year we put up 60 galvanized bucket on sugar maples and made about 15 gallon totals back then.

I've also tapped a few reds off and on over the years, including one string of 20 along with 600 woods sugar maple taps. Like sugar maples, red maples produce way more sap if they are field trees w/ large crowns. I'm not sure if gravity red maple woods taps produce much at all. I rarely see my string of 20 reds running too well.

Sounds like vacuum is highly recommended if you are tapping reds.

[GeneralStark]

Interesting thread. I used to tap some red maples on buckets but gave up because they never gave as much sap as a sugar maple. I do tap them on vacuum as the woods I am presently tapping is about 15% red maple overall. Some larger older trees and some younger trees in the 9-12" range that I have released. The young trees are growing very vigorously and on a couple 2 year old tapholes are almost no longer visible. In this woods, the red maples are generally found up on the ridge top, or in wetter areas. I suspect that production from red maples is much more variable than sugar maples as they tolerate a wider range of soil conditions than sugar maple. Red maples in a swamp probably don't produce as much as red maples on better drained soils with big healthy crowns.

I have been looking at some woods in the area to lease or purchase, and the one I looked at yesterday was mostly red maple. Northwest facing, lots of seeps, and very little ledge or rock. There is some sugar maple in the better drained areas, but I suspect that it is 75% +/- red maple. It appears to be a productive, vigorous woods so I suspect with high vacuum it could achieve .4 gpt on a good year, but hard sayin'.

[lew]

We had out 4,000 taps this year and averaged .4gpt syrup and 27 gpt sap. approximately 1,000 aare reds mixed in with the sugars. Vacuum levels stay around 24". In the small woods behind our house,about 100 taps 98% reds, we used to run gravity tubing and gave up on it because it rearely gave us enough sap to bother with. This year I retubed th woods, added vacuum and we ended up with 13 gpt. The vacuum we added was terrible. The bender releaser I was playing with would not cooperate and I was only able to maintain 11-13 inches vac on it. And only half the time did it have this vacuum on it. As soon as the releaser was half way to the dumping point the sap would start to back up in the mainline untill there was enough pressure to push through the chack valve and make the thing dump. I had bigger fish to fry than play with this little woods. So next year I will attack it again. So back to the point of this thread. I think that with at least moderate levels of vacuum you will produce a decent crop, gravity I don't think I wqould bother. Aslo on a side note. The sugar content of the small mostly red maple woods would be.1% less than the other big woods with higher vacuum adn mostly sugars.

[sjdoyon]

I would be very skeptical to invest in a sugarbush with such a high percentage of red maples. Check around with some sugarmakers before assessing you can produce .40gpt with mostly red maples. I know a few sugarmakers with mostly reds and they run around .25gpt each year.



Interesting thread. I used to tap some red maples on buckets but gave up because they never gave as much sap as a sugar maple. I do tap them on vacuum as the woods I am presently tapping is about 15% red maple overall. Some larger older trees and some younger trees in the 9-12" range that I have released. The young trees are growing very vigorously and on a couple 2 year old tapholes are almost no longer visible. In this woods, the red maples are generally found up on the ridge top, or in wetter areas. I suspect that production from red maples is much more variable than sugar maples as they tolerate a wider range of soil conditions than sugar maple. Red maples in a swamp probably don't produce as much as red maples on better drained soils with big healthy crowns.

I have been looking at some woods in the area to lease or purchase, and the one I looked at yesterday was mostly red maple. Northwest facing, lots of seeps, and very little ledge or rock. There is some sugar maple in the better drained areas, but I suspect that it is 75% +/- red maple. It appears to be a productive, vigorous woods so I suspect with high vacuum it could achieve .4 gpt on a good year, but hard sayin'.

[red maples]

I came in at about .20 per tap this year but I had challenging start weather wise. make 40 gallons in the first 4 weeks of of the season and 20 gallons in the 5th week of the season alone. and went from sap runs of 50-75 gallons a day to 250+ gallons a day in that good week so it an be hit or miss with the reds. If I had more good weather in the first 4 weeks it would have been a different kind of a season I can tell you that. but I am a boston fan.....there's always next year!!! Running vac over 24" most of the season. a few releaser back ups here and there but over all this year was all about micro climates!!! and amber gold hit the mother load!!! ;)

[GeneralStark]

I would be very skeptical to invest in a sugarbush with such a high percentage of red maples. Check around with some sugarmakers before assessing you can produce .40gpt with mostly red maples. I know a few sugarmakers with mostly reds and they run around .25gpt each year.

I hear ya. I think .40 gpt is optimistic, but it is possible based on reports from others in the area. I know someone claiming .50 gpt on a good year with red maples and high vac. I hit 27 gpt(sap) this year and .4 gpt (syrup) even with some vac issues and selling over 1500 gallons of sap. That's with 15% red maple, so not enough to draw any conclusions regarding red maple production.

[jrgagne99]

Just to update, my total was 0.33 gpt, on over 90% reds, with 25inHg vacuum.

My trees are mostly woods trees. They average about 16" diameter and I would characterize the soil as "wet". On a very gentle west-facing slope. Last summer, I thinned quite a bit to open up the crowns. About 10 full cords from 3 acres, but could easily pull another 5 cords out, including a couple hemlock.

[GeneralStark]

Just to update, my total was 0.33 gpt, on over 90% reds, with 25inHg vacuum.

What size are the trees? Are they woods grown or open grown? Have you been thinning to encourage crown development? What are the soils like?

[Ed R]

Last year I made 15 gallons of syrup off 68 taps on buckets. This year I made 26.5 gallons of syrup off of 76 taps on buckets. All red maples with one silver maple. 75% are large woods trees that dominate a low area on the north side of a woods that borders a farm field, the rest are in my front yard which is low ground as well but very open. The soil is very peaty. Over half of my sap and syrup this year came from the 25% of trees in my front yard. I had trouble keeping up with the yard trees emptying every day after work even with 4 gallon buckets. The woods trees ran about the same both years. The sugar content last year was 1.8-2.0 this year from 1.0-1.6. A lot more sap volume this year and better weather. The few red maples and silver maples we tapped at the family farm woods a hundred miles away ran very well this year. I checked the sap conc. on some of them and they were all around 2.5. It was a good year in Michigan this year no matter what you tapped.

[red maples]

it seems it can vary greatly with red maples. from soil, to health of trees, to weather(I think weather is a big factor) . Seem a little luck is needed during the season and you will do good with reds. I also think that even if you have trees that don't usually run that good under the perfect temperature/ weather conditions even my slow runners will run good.

just a little side bar.......I don't know if anyme else saw this but I did notice that alot of my trees hadn't healed over from last year when I was tapping. they usually are healed up by the end of the summer in most cases. I do believe the early fast last march caused them to get stressed causeing them to not grow very good last summer. Since I haev pulled my taps I already see new growth in the holes.

[Walling's Maple Syrup]

I have 4400 taps in the woods behind the sugarhouse. 900 on 5 year old tubing and 5 year old drops. 3500 just set up last year, so this year being the first production year. 65% of these are red maples(about 2900). Ran 27.5" of vac. this year and ended up at 33.7 gpt. Made almost exactly .5gpt of syrup on this woods at 2190 gallons of syrup. Ran just as well as our other woods with almost all hard maple in them. My observations from tapping soft maple over the past 20 years is the sugar usually is at least .1% lower and as others have said, they don't run all that well on gravity. That being said,I would not hesitate to lease or purchase a woods with the majority of taps being red maple as long as a high vacuum system is used. Set up properly, it will produce just as much as a sugar maple bush. Neil

[DrTimPerkins]

As a side note, I just saw that UVM Proctor consideres 0.5 gal/tap to be their "Full Crop" standard.

Actually, 0.50 gal/tap is what we consider our "minimum crop". We've only fallen below that once over the past 10 yrs (last year was 0.46 gal/tap of GOOD syrup = not off-flavored). Our 10 yr average is 0.60 gal/tap.

7850

[GeneralStark]

Actually, 0.50 gal/tap is what we consider our "minimum crop". We've only fallen below that once over the past 10 yrs (last year was 0.46 gal/tap of GOOD syrup = not off-flavored). Our 10 yr average is 0.60 gal/tap.

7850

Care to comment on red maple production? I seem to recall quite a bit of red maple in Proctor's woods.

[Mark]

Actually, 0.50 gal/tap is what we consider our "minimum crop". We've only fallen below that once over the past 10 yrs (last year was 0.46 gal/tap of GOOD syrup = not off-flavored). Our 10 yr average is 0.60 gal/tap.

7850

Can you tell us you do for cleaning tubing and what is changed out for new each year to get that production?

[DrTimPerkins]

Can you tell us you do for cleaning tubing and what is changed out for new each year to get that production?

That would be a different thread altogether. If you want to start a new thread on what it takes to achieve high yield production, we can address it there.

[Revi]

We had a bunch of red maples on our neighbor's land when we started up, but now we have enough on our own land so we moved all the buckets over to our side of the road. I really don't care if the reds produce much, because our buckets are for fun anyway. We have 96% sugar maples on the tubing, so it's mostly reds down in the lower side of our woodlot, where the buckets are.

[500592]

I came in at .25 on no more then 20 in of vac and I had numerous vac problems and had to dump 300 gallons of sap that I found out tested close to 3% :mad: and somedays the releaser worked others it didn't till I got home. That is on 100% red maples and maybe a couple others mixed in I think next year with high vac I can get to that .5. I think the real trick with red maples is to thin your bush we did that I am noticing a difference in growth and sugar content. Remember tap if ya got em bum if ya don't lol.

[Ed R]

Sorry a little off topic. Those of you that mix a lot of red maple sap with sugar maple, does it change the color palate of your syrup or potentially the grade? My syrup is the color of cherry Kool-Aid. So far I have not sold any of my syrup but plan to next year. I think it will be interesting to grade.

[TheMapleMoose]

We tried eliminating the reds one year (30-40% of the bush) and prefered syrup flavor including the reds. Obviously there are several contributing factors at play here but just food for thought. Tap em if you got em, I say.

[sapman]

I like this thread. My bush has 70% softs (maybe half of those silvers). With the 30% sugars included we did around 22gpt this year. Best ever. The biggest downsides I've noticed to the soft maples are earlier budding, runs that don't seem to last as long as others around me with close to all sugar maple, and slightly lower sugar content. Following a freeze, the sap only seems to run decent for maybe two days. Others are getting a gpt/day several days after. Not sure if that's a soft maple issue or not. Can others comment whether this is their experience?

I'm glad to hear of the positive things people are saying about the red maples, though. I'm considering expansion to a woods of probably 95% reds. I don't have a real good setup where I am now, as it is very flat. So I'm hoping that my results would much better on sloped land, slight as it might be.

[Russell Lampron]

Following a freeze, the sap only seems to run decent for maybe two days. Others are getting a gpt/day several days after. Not sure if that's a soft maple issue or not. Can others comment whether this is their experience?

That was my experience with them this season but have gotten the long runs from them in the past. Last year when the season was shortened because of the extreme heat I was getting runs when it barely froze, if at all and was 70* during the day.