Sap wood question....kindof

[Marvel26]

I have a sap wood question....

I just drilled about 20 holes for my buckets, some are low in the flood plain and some are higher in elevation up the hill. My question is: Should I be worried that the drill shavings on all of the higher trees are dry and powdery while the lower trees were "wetter" looking and came out more in a strings?

There wasn't any sap visible as it was -14 C yesterday and -6C today but there was definitely a "wetness" difference between the two. Oh and all the shavings were bright not dark. However, now that I think of it the higher elevation trees were almost white while the lower trees were more yellowy.

All my tubing is on lower trees, I haven't drilled any of them yet but hopefully they will be ok.

Thanks

Rob

[sapman]

Often when I'm tapping, if it comes out really powdery, it indicates decaying wood. But I'm not sure if we would define powdery the same. Are your lower trees also sugar maples? I have lots of trees in a swampy area, and they are "soft" maples, as sugars won't grow there. And the texture of shavings can be different. Softs tend to have less white wood, oftentimes, too.

[Marvel26]

I'm not a great tree identifier but if I had to make a choice I would say they are all reds, they're aren't many sugars around here. The trees with powdery shavings were rock hard and they were all live trees with no dead limbs at all.

[Marvel26]

Tapped one of my lower lines today, 20 taps and all the shavings were "wet". I have a new tapping bit now so I might see what happens on a few higher trees.

[Cedar Eater]

I'm not a great tree identifier but if I had to make a choice I would say they are all reds, they're aren't many sugars around here. The trees with powdery shavings were rock hard and they were all live trees with no dead limbs at all.

Red maples down in low wet areas are just naturally wetter. I've seen this when cutting them with a chainsaw. I have lowland and high-and-dryland and I think that's probably all that you're seeing. It may be that the frost line doesn't go as low into the soil in wet areas because the moisture conducts more heat up from the ground below them. I've never heard that lower trees run first, but it wouldn't surprise me. This is my first year of sugaring.