Marking Trees

[sr73087]

Last year was my first year of sugaring and I only tapped a few trees. This year I want to tap a bunch more that I have on my property. How do most of you mark your trees for easy identification in the winter ?

[sugarsand]

I've been using surveyors tape to lay out tubing lines, I just staple to the bark then I can use a sharpie to label or identify various trees. Hope I helped.

Sugarsand

[SeanD]

I use a tree marking paint. It comes as a pen and its sold at most hardware stores. It has a ball in it like spray paint, but a tip like a Sharpie. The marks have lasted multiple seasons now.

It's best to have a system no matter what your do, so you can find your marks easily. I make a dot slightly smaller than a thumbtack for each number of taps a tree gets. I make the dots at eye level facing my house - or the property owner's house. All the trees I tap are in yards. If you can't see the house, choose a road, due north, east, etc. as your landmark. This system is good for me because I want to mark the trees clearly, but not do anything too obvious for the land owners to get annoyed with. I know where to look because I know they are there, but no one else can really spot them when they are looking into the woods.

You'll get to know your trees pretty well and you really won't need the marks for identification after the first year - especially when you start leaving holes behind, but it is really helpful for me to know the number of taps for trees. Sometimes I can't remember if a tree gets the second tap and I know myself if I'm holding the drill, I'll put the second one in when maybe I shouldn't.;)

Sean

[PerryW]

I use survey flagging. It the tree is very large (and would require a long piece of flagging), I just hang the flag on a sapling next to the maple.

[unc23win]

I use paint hot pink works the best for me (found that out while marking horse trails) but orange isn't bad. I actually marked out two mainlines the other day and used < and > to indicate what side of the tree I want the mainline on. I am making a section so I can drive up the middle 2 mainlines one all taps to the right the other all taps to the left. On trees that I am adding and don't want to miss I make l I found that a vertical stripe covers better.

[Trapper118]

I am the plant manager at a rope braiding company. Therefore, I used neon orange 550 paracord to mark our trees.

[kiteflyingeek]

A few weeks ago, I marked just over 100 taps on 80+ trees. I used nylon baling twine from bales that broke in the field this summer. I made my own diameter gauge (from a framing square) and using that, I determined how many taps for that tree. Then, using the dots-per-tap idea, I tied that many knots in one end of the twine and then tied the twine in a loop around the tree. Now, before someone gets alarmed, I tied the loop very loose and I will monitor these "markers" as I tap the trees each year.

The nylon twine is orange in color so that will help these trees stand out during tapping season.

[red maples]

Flagging tape is cheap and easy no cutting tools required. if its a big tree then like perry said just mark a little something next to it. the good thing about flagging tape is its easy to see, and you can see it from all sides of the tree so you don't run the chance of missing the tree. if your on the wrong side of where the paint or what ever is.