moving maple trees

[maplefarmer]

i have a nice woods that i am currently tapping, but the owner of the woods has informed me he is going to sell that property. he says the trees would be destroyed, i could have them if i wanted, his woods is close to where i live and have some of my trees that are tapped. my question is if i had access to a tree spade would it be possible to dig and move the trees to my property? if this would work,what size tree could be moved, i was guessing maybe trees that are 6-8" diam. that would be possible to be tapped in the near future, obviously i realize i couldn't move 36" diam. trees. any ideas out there on this.

[Hurry Hill Farm]

Dear Maple farmer,

I have no thoughts on the tree spade, optimum size etc But will tell you that I have planted hundreds of 7-10 ft bare root trees (holes dug by hand ahead of time and dig trees and had em back in the ground in less that four hours) and the best advice I can give you is in my opinion #1 any transfer of trees does better if they have not leafed out and #2 irrigate them for atleast two years! #3 regardless of size keep snowfence around it with soap tied to it so the deer don't rub their antlers #4 have a knowledgeable forester suggest how to prune the trees.

Jan Woods
Hurry Hill Farm
Edinboro PA

[moeh1]

This will be interesting to see what some folks with expereince say. My only experience is trying to take stumps out on trails and the maples are always the toughest by far of any tree. They tend to spread way out. I think you would have to move pretty small trees.
Marty

[Hurry Hill Farm]

This will be interesting to see what some folks with expereince say. My only experience is trying to take stumps out on trails and the maples are always the toughest by far of any tree. They tend to spread way out. I think you would have to move pretty small trees.
Marty

Marty is right - size will be a problem. My trees were about the diameter of my thumb when I transplanted them. Remember the adage also a $100 hole for a $10 tree. The hole must be 2x the size of the tree roots - a hard objective to accomplish if a 6 inch tree had roots out 6-8 feet out from the trunk. This is not a transplanting I would undertake - it is heartbreaking to see maples cut down, but more heartbreaking to go to the expense of transplanting and only see 25% of your transplants make it. Go buy a woods!

hurry Hill

[adk1]

I would first try to buy the land yourself

[ennismaple]

I've been told that a transplanted tree won't start to grow in height and diameter until the root ball is large enough to support the tree - which would be a root ball diamter about equal to the hieght of the tree. That means a 6' ht transplanted tree would easily be bigger in 10 years than a 15' tree that was transplanted at the same time.

[kiegscustoms]

I would first try to buy the land yourself

You will probably have as much into renting a tree spade and hauling, transplanting etc as you would to just buy the woods. Maple trees spread their roots over a large area as ennismaple described, so even a large spade would not get enough root mass for the trees to grow within the near future. When you say you can "have the trees" does that mean you need to transplant them or could you cut them for firewood or timber? I would hate to see a good sugar woods be destroyed as much as the next guy, but if you are being offered the trees I would use them for what you can before that offer is no longer available. Maple boards and lumber are not cheap and if you could get some milled up it could be worth it...? Just a suggestion.

[lew]

In western NY there is a bush that was transplanted. If memory serves me correctly, the trees were 6-10" diameter trees. The trees were cut off at 6-8 feet in height, dug up and moved. I can't remember any of the details, but the bush grew and is now being tapped. If you are really interested you could get a hold of Lyle Merle in Attica, NY. He could give you more info.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Any tree that has been toped is going to a crapy tree as far a branch develoment. When we were hoping to move a large tree and had time we root pruned it by having the tree spade set up and run the blades down and leave the tree in place for the year and if it lived then we would try and transplant it. Im With Hurry Hills Farm when it comes to spending all day to move a free tree and then your the one disposing of a dead tree.

[3rdgen.maple]

Okay so exacally how is it possible to cut 6 to 10 inch trees off at 6 to 8 foot high and expect them to even survive? Seems to me If you cut the tops off the trees with all the branches you no longer have a tree but rather a 6 to 8 foot high stumps that are now to short to sell as lumber. I also got to ask if the owner of the land gave you permission to tap his trees why would he not give you first dibs on the land? I think I would be a little more than upset if he went out and found a buyer before it was offered to me. But hey it's a funny world out there I guess.

[maplehound]

Couple years ago my dad and I decided to put an addition on my house. The problem was I had planted a high yield sugar maple tree in the area we decided to build. The tree at that time was about 3" across and over 20' tall. My father assuerd me we could move it with no problem (he had done some before) so in the late summer we started to water it every day just to make sure the gorund was saturated around the tree. After a couple weeks of watering we started to dig around the tree by hand. We dug a circle larger than the drip area of the tree and down about 3 or 4 feet, then when we were ready to move it we pulled a chain under the ball to release the bottom roots and had a neighbor with a backhoe lift it out and place it on a trailer. The tree was taken to my fathers house about 3 miles away where we had a large hole waiting and ready for it. unfortunatly when the tree was lifted from the hole the dirt fell off the roots (most of it anyhow) so when we replanted it we had trouble getting it positioned and replanted. Then we watered it everyday to make sure it was well saturated (as advised by an arborist). All this work and the tree died. Our first problem was we moved it at the wrong time of year, second was that the rootball didn't hold together. Believe me it was alot of work for nothing.

[TF Maple]

Root pruning and leaving the tree grow for at least a year would be a good plan. It would develope a small dense root ball, if it lives. Topping off the tree will cause it to start a lot of new branches and might result in a high sugar tree. Where I used to work as an IT Specialist, we had a maple in back of the building that must have been hit by lightning years ago. The trunk was half to one third the length you would expect on a maple. The tree responded by sending out branches all around the remaining trunk. It had so many branches with so many leaves, I would think it had a great sugar content and maybe fairly good sap amounts. Never did get to tap it and find out.

[KenWP]

I used to run a tree farm and move trees and am always amazed seeing people buy a tree from a nusery and put it in the back of a truck or out the back of a SUV and zoom down the road. The air moving over the tree at high spead dries it out so fast I have seen the leaves crumple like chips when they get it home. Some guys have gone to moving trees longer distances in closed box trucks to increase survivial rates.

[maplefarmer]

it sounds like moving trees might be possible, but alot of work with no garantee. as far as buying this particular woods, the urban sprawl from the big city is making land prices so high, need i say more? thank you everyone for your thoughts maplefarmer

[maple flats]

I was too young to remember much about the detils but my father moved 5 maples about 1952-54. He dug them by hand, They were all about 2-3" caliper and 15-20ft tall. He loaded them onto an old hay wagon and drove them about 1.5 miles and planted them. 1 was a black maple, and 4 were reds. 2 are still alive and doing well. One died within a couple of years, and 2 died within the last 10 years. I think the last 2 to die had too many roots cut from plowing a garden to within about 6 feet of the tree line. The 2 still alive are both about 18-20" DBH and healthy. These however were not sugars, and the black maple was one of the last 2 to die. This might help a little. However, early growth was very slow. They showed very little progress for about 6-8 years before they started to grow as if they had started there.
Seems like too much work. If you are young enough or want to grow for the next generation, try ordering s few of the super maples to plant and make an orchard. Or transplant trees slightly bigger than seedlings from the woods you speak of.

[Maple Hobo]

In some places they have trucks that move trees with 3 or 4 steel plates the pistons push into the ground also containing the root system, and a support boom to hold the tree trunk when it lifts it out of the ground.

They dig the hole to be placed like this then go collect the tree the same way, when the tree is set in and the plates retract its a pretty close match to the existing grade.

Don't think it would work well on a slope and in very rocky ground...
Pretty much what we have to work with here :)

If you have a lot of sapplings to move though... you could probably just use a backhoe. If they don't all make it then just move another one until it does.
They should survive for the most part, maples are pretty tough trees unless you really hurt them.

We have worse issues with the deer killing young trees then die back from moving them.

[Big_Eddy]

I moved 5 black walnuts too late last fall - smallest about 3" in diameter, the largest about 10". All are dead this spring, although the smallest does have a few leaves that appear to be struggling. My son and I figured 1 day of our lives wasted was a fair trade for the potential of saving these 5 trees which had to move quickly - but it didn't pan out. I used a backhoe. I think they died off because black walnuts have a large tap root, and I was not able to get it all. Also - we had a hard dry winter and the root balls had not had a chance to settle before the ground froze.

I successfully transplanted a 6" dia maple from one side of my drive to another, after it started to interfere with the power lines, and I have moved numerous spruce, cedars and pines in the 3-5" diameter range with over 90% success.

I like to move them early in the spring, before the leaves are out, and while the ground is still wet. I dig a 2' "moat" around each at about the drip line, then pull a piece of high tension cable under the root ball. Wrap an old snow chain around and drag the root ball out.

If you have a lot to do - Vermeer make the tool for the job. http://www.vermeer.com/vcom/EnvironmentalEquipment/Model.jsp?PrdlnID=3840&ModID=41858

Can be done if you really want to - takes some serious time, $$$ and a 50% success rate would be unusually high on the bigger trees.