Lime

[Maplepro]

I was wondering if anyone has spred lime in there sugar woods before? i was talking to a friend who is doing it this year said he did it a few years ago and seen a diffrence. he was telling me about a chap in either Vermont or PA. that spred lime and seen over a 60% sap yeild on the part of his woods that he limed i was just wondering what the benifits and what the disadvantges are.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Maple trees are like any other plant, they have a certain range of pH (soil acidity) that they grow the best under. I don't recall at the moment what that is. Perhaps some one else here on the trader does. If your maples are on soils that are too acid, then addition of lime would improve the health, growth rate and consequently the production of the trees. First thing to do would be take a soil test to see what the pH is.

[fred]

find out what PH they like the best and test the soil around them, more than likely they are too acidic being that the leaves fall and rot every year.soil tests here are 12 dollars a sample and will give more info than you need

[Gary R]

Check this information out. It may help.

http://maple.dnr.cornell.edu/pubs/trees.htm

[cncaboose]

Sugar maples like soil best that is between pH 5.5- 7.3. They can survive in more acidic soils too. Before you think about doing any liming you should get several samples of soil from you woods tested for pH. My local coopereative extension office ran mine and all were between 5.0 and 5.2. I attended a session given by an organic producer from near Croghan, NY last year. He made a big difference in the health of his woods with lime putting a halt to maple dieback. He did it 2 consecutive years and hasn't had to do it since. The downside is that it takes a LOT of lime and spreading it in the woods is hard since most has to be done by hand. The recommendation as I remember it was about 40-50 pounds of lime per 1 bucket tree. If you are buying lime by the bag, that gets expensive and tedious real fast. I spread some lime last spring and this spring in part of my bush and so far I can't say I see a difference but it is early. I probably wouldn't have done it this year except that I got a couple of tons of free lime that had been dumped and was left after an adjacent cornfield was limed this spring. What clearly made a difference on trees, both with and without lime, is thinning them out. That increased growth rings from about 1/16 inch prior to 2006 up to 1/4 inch in 2006 and 2007, based on a few trees cut this spring as I continue thinning. A couple of handfulls of triple ten fertilizer and lime for 20 years has made the roadside trees in my yard grow at a rapid pace in spite of the huge amount of roadsalt that is spread next to them.

[fred]

remember lime is going to take 6 months to react after it hits the soil, it has to get through the leaf base first. if you have a cone spreader or small fert. spreader available you could spread enough between lats. to do some good but as we said make sure you need it