how far apart to plant maple seedlings

[markct]

i ordered 10 sweet sap silver maples from st lawrence nursery a few days ago. they are suposed to have 3 to 5 percent sugar content and grow to tappable size in 8 to 10 years, sounds hard to believe but i will know in 10 years i guess! anyhow what would be proper spacing for planting trees so they arnt so crowded together or too far apart, i am planning to plant a few along the edge of a roadway and a few in a sidehill area that just has grass growing in it

[ennismaple]

I you don't plan on culling any of them you should plant them at 32' centres.

[Jeff E]

For the roadside trees a little closer spacing would be ok as 2 sides would be totally open. 20'?

[dano2840]

well i have a sugar maple in my door yard that is 4ft wide at base, its top starts 5 ft off the ground and it has top all the way around about a 40 ft canopy, so i would plant them 40 ft away go with 50

[PerryW]

What's a sweet sap silver maple?

(I'm guessing it's something that grows faster than a sugar maple).

I'm too old to wait 40 years for a sugar maple to become tappable.

[lmathews]

How much were the trees?

[cncaboose]

check out the ST Lawrence Nurseries web site. www.sln.potsdam.ny.us/timber.html#Sweet_Sap Single trees are $22. Silvers do grow quite fast but are a soft maple and suffer a lot of damage from things like ice and wind. I have a single large silver maple at my house that we tap. It tests 3% and makes as much sap as most sugar maples, tho its season is often a bit shorter.