reclaiming old sugarbush

[Bentley Wood Maple]

Have been approached about taking over some not tapped in over 30 yrs. My take is a lot of the older trees have issues and need to come down. I think they wil be full of ants and grubs, will make good wood for the sugarhouse but not marketable firewood. That is the easy part.
Hard part is convincing owner about 1/2 his younger maples need to come down, they are growing right on top of one another. Mainly 8-12 inch diameter trees that go up 30 + ft before branching out. Should end up with 200 + taps a mile from my sugarhouse.
In 5-10 yrs...
is this something you would pursue? Or too much work for too little return... In addition, they are seasonal residents from out of state. In the back of my mind I wonder if 7 yrs from now they sell the land to some tree hugger who insists that drilling holes in trees is pure evil.
decisions, decisions

[BlueberryHill]

I say go for it. With them being so close, even if it does not work out in the long run at least you got to tap for a little while and plus you got free firewood out of it. But I heat my house with wood too so everyone's situation is different. If it were me I would do it for sure. I am sure that others on here have better situations where they would not want to mess with this.

[spud]

Have been approached about taking over some not tapped in over 30 yrs. My take is a lot of the older trees have issues and need to come down. I think they wil be full of ants and grubs, will make good wood for the sugarhouse but not marketable firewood. That is the easy part.
Hard part is convincing owner about 1/2 his younger maples need to come down, they are growing right on top of one another. Mainly 8-12 inch diameter trees that go up 30 + ft before branching out. Should end up with 200 + taps a mile from my sugarhouse.
In 5-10 yrs...
is this something you would pursue? Or too much work for too little return... In addition, they are seasonal residents from out of state. In the back of my mind I wonder if 7 yrs from now they sell the land to some tree hugger who insists that drilling holes in trees is pure evil.
decisions, decisions

I would not even consider thinning the woods on leased land. Your lease would long run out before the thinning would pay off. I would go in there and tap anything over 8 inches and settle for a little less sugar content.

Spud

[325abn]

What Spud said!

[Michael Greer]

If you're burning wood, then a bit of thinning is a good opportunity. No need to go crazy trying to cut and plan every stem. You'll need firewood the year after, and the year after that too. Thinning should be a gradual process...you never can predict when the next ice storm will ruin half of what's out there.
This might be that rare opportunity to go through and check sugar content before bringing in the saw, and then thin accordingly. Having too many trees is preferable to having not enough.
Lastly, don't write off those old trees until after tapping them for a year or two. Almost every tree I tap is over a hundred years old. Some of them have been ugly for thirty years, but they crank out the sap and are more reliable than a 10 inch tree.