"Super Sweet" saplings?

[ADK_XJ]

Hey all, we moved to a new property this year with 30 acres (from 4) and nice split of some flat pasture with majority sloped forest with a ton of sugar maples. The front pasture had not been mowed in years it seems but now that it's been brush hogged and cleaned up I see an opportunity to plant some trees along the main drive into the property (which my wife would like, too).

Anyone have experience with planting the "super sweet" or "super sap" maple varieties that some nurseries tout? The one I'm interested in is from St. Lawrence Nurseries (a bit north of us) and promises a fast-growing silver maple variety with 3-5% sugar content. Any other varieties to consider?

One reason I like the idea of the silvers is that they say it tolerates clay soils decently well and we certainly have a lot of that out in our pastures and along the driveway.

[Kh7722]

I got a price from a nursery that sells the super sweet. Kinda had the same idea to plant for retirement and the super sweets grow fast which is nice. If ordering just a few it’s feasible, I got a quote for 500 trees and with shipping was just under $9,000.00. Not saying it wouldn’t be nice when they started production its just not financially feasible at this time.
Kevin

[ADK_XJ]

What Nursery was it, may I ask?

[DrTimPerkins]

What Nursery was it, may I ask?

St. Lawrence Nurseries, Potsdam, NY
https://stlawrencenurseries.com/products/sweet-sap-silver-maple

These are silver maple saplings, 4-6 feet tall. I don't believe they would "promise" that the sap would be super-sweet, but it is likely that the sap sugar content would be higher than typical. We planted a bunch a few years ago. They aren't doing particularly well on our site (upland, mesic).

Cornell "Super Sweet" trees are offered through FK Nursery in Missouri and are RPM seedlings (so supposedly quite fast growing, at least for a while)
https://www.fknursery.com/page/Cornell-Super-Sweet-Sugar-Maples-Meet-RPM-Production-Techonology
I don't know the availability of these. There was a place in upstate NY that offered them for a while, but I believe they went bankrupt. Mike Farrell bought a bunch of them when the company went out of business, and we acquired several hundred from him at the time. The deer love them, but they're generally doing well.

This shot is one of the newer plantations. Probably about 8-10 yrs old.
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[ADK_XJ]

Thanks for the info! I'm interested in the silver maples because it says right there in the description that they can handle clay soil and I know the area I was thinking of planting them has clay in it. There's also a good bit of shale around here near the Hudson River as we are.

Any thoughts on sites / soil that would be ideal for the rapid growing silvers they are selling?

I'm sure this question has been asked before but would it be completely impractical to find maple saplings in the woods and replant them?

[DrTimPerkins]

Any thoughts on sites / soil that would be ideal for the rapid growing silvers they are selling?

That would be a question best asked of the nursery, however silver maples tend to do best in moist/wet sites.


I'm sure this question has been asked before but would it be completely impractical to find maple saplings in the woods and replant them?

Not impractical at all. Success depends upon a lot of things, especially: size of sapling, how much of the root ball you get, time of planting, plentiful watering afterward. Lots of recommendations on this site and elsewhere.

[aamyotte]

I'm sure this question has been asked before but would it be completely impractical to find maple saplings in the woods and replant them?

This past summer I transplanted 4 red maples from the back woods that were in the way for making my trail. They varied from 3' to 8' in height. As mentioned plenty of watering and they will take. I wasn't very gentle with the root ball either, I didn't have much earth in the ball mostly just the roots. I made sure to have a good hole filled with good topsoil to give them some good soil to the root contact to help them take in the new location.

[ADK_XJ]

Ok, thanks for the info!

[twinhullstwo]

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These trees shown here are supersweet's that Lewis Staats sold me back in the 90's

[DrTimPerkins]

Nice. How big are they now. Have you tested the sugar content yet?

[twinhullstwo]

The biggest ones are between 8"to10" DBH.
Sugar content has been typically 4% and higher.A few 6%range.I do attribute a lot of it do to good soil conditions and open crowns.
I was quite pleased to see last fall quite a few of them produced seeds for the first time!
And yes,I had to collect some of the seeds.
This nursery is a little over 3 acres.

[maple flats]

I wonder if those seeds will yield super sweets, my guess would be not necessarily, some maybe yes, others and the majority likely no. When you plant them, let us know after maybe 8-10 years.

[DrTimPerkins]

I wonder if those seeds will yield super sweets, my guess would be not necessarily, some maybe yes, others and the majority likely no. When you plant them, let us know after maybe 8-10 years.

That answer is about as good as it gets. The heritability of the sweet tree trait is modest at best, so with open pollenated trees, while the mother tree may be known to be sweet, the qualities of the father are unknown. So the odds are that the father will be average, the mother sweet, and the offspring, on average, a little sweeter than normal, but not a lot.

[Michael Greer]

I planted a couple of the St Lawrence Nursery "Sweet Sap Silvers" about 10 years ago in a waterlogged spot. They are thriving, and will be ready to tap in a few years. I've also dug and transplanted a number of Sugar Maples from the woods and have had very pleasing success. It should be noted that any transplanted tree has to be consistently watered for it's first year with no slip-ups. A three foot tree with a 1/2" trunk is WAY easier to move than one that's 6 or 7 Ft., and they recover faster.

[Spanielslovesappin]

So i have planted over 200 Cornell super sweet trees in the last 15 years all into fields or 10-15 feet out of the woods. I originally was getting bare root seedlings direct from Cornell and had bad luck with them, 10 trees have survived out of the original Cornell 100 BUT the ones that made it did very well. I am in poor heavy clay soil. That said its not really the fault of the trees; I was negligent in mowing and fertilizing the trees each year and i also did not know that golden rod would out compete and more or less kill the seedlings. My survivability rate was better but i pulled the stakes and growth tubes on 10' tall trees and and a buck went and rubbed the bark off them!

I have 100 Korest Kneeling Supersweet RPM trees that i planted 4 years ago. They are not inexpensive BUT they are worth it in terms of survivability and speed of growth; the root balls are massive. Of course due to the cost i have put more effort into these. The only looses i had with the RPM trees have been caused by human interference. Additionally i attempted to plant 5 into relatively bare spots in my woods but they failed i think due to the fact the we had a dry summer the first year and the older trees just out competed them.

My recipe for success involves a bit of effort but works.
Prep the bed for planting with a tiller
Put down a weed mat
Use a 6' growth tube.
Support the tube with rebar preferably longer than the tube.
Add a 24" chicken wire to the top of the tube to protect the tree from browsing. and prune so one leader get above the brows line ASAP.
Once you remove the growth tube (if you do,) leave the Rebar! Deer won't strip the bark and seem to not like to touch the bar.
Use 1 time release fertilizer stake each spring (follow directions, 30" from tree!)

I have 4 year old FK RPM Sweet trees that are over 12' tall.

I have also planted other FK RPM seedlings, they grow really well.

[DrTimPerkins]

We have likewise planted Cornell seedlings and Forest Keeling RPM seedlings, as well as some from St. Lawrence. In our soils (spodosols, sandy/till) our success has been spotty. Some seedlings do well, some not at all. We drilled holes, put in some peat moss and fertilizer, planted, and put up deer exclusion fencing all around. Watered them periodically during the first summer.

In the photo below, FK RPM seedlings did well and Cornell seedlings did well, but the St. Lawrence Silver Maples did not. Probably the soils at this site are not appropriate for silver maple. They started about 18-24" tall, but are 10-15' tall now. Not sure what we're going to do with them at this point, but thinking we may transplant them and spread them out throughout this entire field.

21846

In our other plantation all the seedlings did well, even without deer fencing.