sugarmaple dieback

[PATheron]

I have a question about some sugars in an area im interested in tapping. These trees are lower on a hill and were beautiful larger sized sugarmaples. These trees were tapped 25 years ago for a few years and I thought they were in decline becouse of some taps left in the trees. I dont think this is the case becouse on top of the hill there is a beautifull healthy stand that were part of the same bush. After talking* to the owner I found that the beavers had dammed up the water below this lower stand to the point it was backed up into the area the declining trees are. I think this caused the decline. I would say the average tree has about 1/4 to 1/3 dead in the canapy. The beevers were removed and the water has gone down. Will these trees probly recover or are they doomed? Im going to tap the upper stand and wonder if it is worth running the tube big enough to accomidate that lower bush. There is probly a 1000 taps roughly in that area. I wont tap them untill 2010. That will give them more time to recover. Does anyone know about trees that have suffered that set back? Not all of that 1000 have that problem but quite a few have been affected and im trying to get an idea what ill have there for taps. Knowing what to do with them would be helpfull. Theron

[Russell Lampron]

Any of the dead or rotten wood won't come back of course but if the trees are still healthy otherwise you can still tap them. Just go easy on the number of taps and you should be able to get some decent sap from them.

[brookledge]

I'd agree with Russ go easy on them and as long as the beavers are gone and the roots are not flooded any more they will start to comeback.
Keith

[PATheron]

I wasnt sure how that worked. It seems like they would start to get better. Itll be at least a season away so maybe Ill know better by then too. Theron

[peacemaker]

i agree i would think if u used tree savers and kept the tapping to to book on size ...they would be ok ...one thing about a maple they will heal well and the tops will send up new shoots i have seen trees wind snapped the top touching the ground sheer half way down grow a new top and once saw where the top wa on the ground had some branchs turned and growing up 15 or so feet like they where new trees ..

[Valley View Sugarhouse]

Theron I threw your post to my forester, and here is the responce he gave me...

Hey Andy,



My first thought was that this was just the natural life cycle of an older maple tree. Typically an over mature stem will die or show decline from the tips back down into the central portion of the tree. There can be several stress factors associated with this as well. The most common I have seen is in relation to construction disturbance around the root zone to the affected tree. Basically from the drip line to the trunk. The point about the beavers at the end makes perfect sense as to why these trees are most likely In decline, that being compaction or the loss of soil porosity within the soil for the movement of air and nutrients thereby causing a stress and decline as evidenced by the die back. When the beavers blocked up the water and over saturated the soil around the trees, the natural “fluffiness” within the soil was lost and the macro and micro pores collapsed. It would be interesting to see if there are a few of the trees that were only partially submerged, say on just one side, you would see die back only on that side and the other side would look OK. What your buddy needs to do, if he really wants to try to save them is find an arborist company that has an air spade. Check out this link, this is where we bought our tool… www.supersonicairknife.com/airknife.shtml It is great for decompaction work. There are several different methods for decompaction, this web site shows several of them… http://treeroot.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=81 Just make sure to scroll to the bottom and go to the picture section, there is a lot of other good info for your friend here as well. Hope this helps.



Best regards,



Mark Fogarty

Operations Manager and Licensed Forester

chippers

Woodstock, Vermont