Renting trees

[lmathews]

I have a neighbor who has 177 acres of land and on it is a 45 acre 16'' to 20'' diameter tree size bush.It has not been tapped in app.20 years so should be vergin trees.He will let me tap them but will not let me pay by the tap.He wants so much per the gallon of sap.Can anyone shed some info to the subject?Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks Lee

[treefinder]

hey lee i never heard of anyone charging by the gallon of sap!that would be alright if he was going to tap it then sell the sap to you. i think you would have enough of your own money in it. i pay .30 a tap .maybe it would average out if not alot of sap was gathered . did he give you a set price per gallon?@ .25 a gallon every time you go and gather 100gal is 25.00 so out of every 100 you almost give him a gal of syrup. i think in this case its only worth it if you buy the sap from him at the going rate!with his exspense on tubing or buckets.sap could only test 1.5%. by the way did the vacuum pump work that we swapped?

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Yes, most trees are rented by the tap but you should be able to do a few conversions to adapt to what the landowner wants. If the going rate is $.30 per tap and an average tap yields about 10 gallons of 2% sap per year then each gallon would be worth 3 cents. How would the volume of sap be measured? Are you installing tubing? Will it be under vacuum? Can you get a long term lease?
My 2cents
Doug

[mfchef54]

I hope you don't mind me jumping in but that .30 per tap is that for the whole season?

[Valley View Sugarhouse]

I pay 30 cents a tap (each hole I drill), and I own all the equipment in the woods, do the work, and truck the sap. I buy some sap, and I pay 30 cents a gallon for 2.5% sap delivered, and it is prorated up or down depending on sugar content. If I have to pick it up, I charge between 10-15 cents a gallon for the trucking.

[jrthe3]

i had the same kinda of offer when i told the owner to put up the tubing and i would buy the sap after he priced out all the stuff needed he said 25 cents a hole

[Sugarmaker]

Seems about right that if you are using buckets or gravity tubing the sap might be 3 to 4 cents per gallon. So if you get 10 gallons of 2% sap at 4 cents per gallon it would be 40 cents per tap. The 10 gallons of sap would make a quart of syrup. If you can use vacuum for the same price even better.
My 4 cents:)
BTW we are going to still pay a gallon of syrup for each 100 taps in 2009. We put up the tubing have all the investment in time and hauling too.

Chris

[TapME]

All my deals are for a gallon of syrup per 100 taps, a quart for 25 etc. Everyone loves to get the syrup and not the money. Just my experience.

[brookledge]

I pay .50 per tap. When it comes down to it for the convenience for me to leave my lines up year round that is cheap. I know that alot of you are paying .25 to .30 per tap. The way I look at it is the one main line that I have on property other than my own has 7 different owners and if one is not happy then I can't have the other land owners trees running to my sugarhouse. So in a case where one of them has around 200 taps I'm happy to pay 100.00 With vacuum this year I got about .6 gal of syrup per tap so it was a good investment.

Lee
As for paying per gallon, It leaves room for argument. If you keep track how does he know your being honest and visa versa. Going by the tap is easy. You can count them and he can count them and then no arguing. Like someone else said usually paying per gallon is for some one selling sap to you. And since the land owner isn't the one footing the cost to install the tubing. Tell him if he wants to install all of the tubing and sell you the sap you will pay him by the gallon otherwise you are only willing to pay per tap unless he is willing to acept .02 per gallon
Keith

[treefinder]

like i said before i pay .30 a tap and i signed a ten year lease agreement. thats the only way i would do it way to much money to invest then have the owner up and cut off his bush . and then i'm out all time and money invested.right now we have 1225 taps $368.00 a year but it keeps going up every year because i can't stop tapping.i just tell him everyyear how many taps we have . there's no need to be dishonest when your only talking a few more dallars every year,and he could go count them anytime .

[Jim Brown]

We pay 50 cents per tap on vac and have a 7 year lease with a 7 year option

[lmathews]

I tried to get it for .50 cents per tap but he said it was not reasonable.He said if it was a good year he looses,if a bad year we loose.I am going to try for a 5 year lease,as I will be putting in all new tube on vac(app 1000 taps).I was doing some math and with the av of 45 gal of sap to 1 gal of syrup valued at $35. a gal of sap would be worth .77.I was thinking of offering him .05 a gal which would be app 2.25 per gal of syrup.If I av 1000 gal a day it would be $50 a day times app 10 days of good runs it would be $500 devided by 1000 =.50 per tap.Does any of this make sense and/or can anyone refine this better.
Kevin,I had the pump hooked up for 1 day it was not running correctly.I am going to rebuild it.Do you still have the surge pumps?
Thanks Lee

[treefinder]

no . the only pumps i have are the ones i got from you.but only use one of them as of right now. does whats his name still have that 4x12? kevin

[lmathews]

I believe he does.His name is Brian 315-393-7883,or1728.

[royalmaple]

Have you asked the guy what he wants per acre or tap? If he's down on all your suggestions(which I think are fair) then what does he want. Or does he just want people to beg him to tap this bush and never agree to anything?

[brookledge]

Lee
You may want to bump up the value of the syrup. Wholesale presently is 44.00 per gallon
Keith

[lmathews]

I was basing the price of a gallon at 3.20/pound x 11 pounds= 35.20.

[Russell Lampron]

Bascom's is currently paying $3.25 lb for commercial and $3.50 lb for everything else. Maple Grove is paying $4.00 lb plus $.05 lb for delivering it to them. That brings the wholesale price of a gallon of syrup up high enough so that $.50 per tap would be a minimum.