A large part of my woods will probably be sun-scalded.

[heus]

A relative just had the portion of their woods that is next to ours logged. It was originally part the same parcel of land that we own. Anyways, like on our property, there were huge old trees in there. One red oak measured around 8 feet diameter at the base. They had to use explosives to split the trunks so the log trucks could haul them away. Several 150+ year old sugars were cut. This leaves about 1100 feet of my sugars all of a sudden exposed to the sun and wind at one property line. Alot of my sugars seem to hate the sun anyways and will quickly get scalded if a large tree comes down exposing it. I guess I am bracing myself for some severely sun scalded 130+ year old sugars and even some to be blown down by storms. Not a huge deal, because I need the firewood, and I only tap 200-300 out of a possible 1000 or so taps. I just hate to see an old healthy sugar maple tree die. Especially ones that were tapped by my ancestors.

[ennismaple]

I could be wrong - but doesn't sun scald affect young trees more than older ones? I would expect the thicker bark of a 100+ year old tree to provide more protection.

[DrTimPerkins]

I could be wrong - but doesn't sun scald affect young trees more than older ones? I would expect the thicker bark of a 100+ year old tree to provide more protection.

That is correct. Sunscald only affects younger, thin-barked saplings. Probably what is being referred to here is "thinning shock", or perhaps residual stand damage if the cutting and skidding were not done well.

[heus]

Dr. Tim, I guess thinning shock is what I mean.

[Jim Schumacher]

All right, I'll ask it then. What exactly is thinning shock?

[3rdgen.maple]

I think its when you have been working out of town for a few weeks and you come home and see your wife has lost alot of weight and your in shock how thin she is. Maybe I just dont really know though. :D

[driske]

The wife thinning down in my absence would have me wondering.
Those are some huge trees- 8' red oak-wow. Nothing like that around here. Not in my woods any way. The Porcupine Mts. in Michigan's UP are home to some humongous hardwoods and hemlock.
Thinning, my .02--- make haste slowly. Obviously something beyond your control at the property edge described.

[TF Maple]

From Oregon State Extension.
Thinning shock: When stands are allowed to compete excessively, the crown recedes to the uppermost portion of the tree. When thinned, these small-crowned trees are not capable of using the added light and space. In fact, they may experience thinning shock and stop growing for a few years after thinning.

[heus]

From Oregon State Extension.
Thinning shock: When stands are allowed to compete excessively, the crown recedes to the uppermost portion of the tree. When thinned, these small-crowned trees are not capable of using the added light and space. In fact, they may experience thinning shock and stop growing for a few years after thinning.

Exactly what I am afraid will happen to many of my trees.

[red maples]

I might be a little worried a thinning wife... hopefully your mail man isn't very good looking :lol:

hopefully all will be OK. I have been just going slow, a tree here a tree there. and just taking down what I need for wood. just letting in a little light at a time. where I started in the spring a few trees are already growing new little branches about 10-15ft up. so I will just keep doing what I am doing. in a few year hopefully I will have a nice healthy Bush!!! :)

Have do a good cleaning of the chain saw...not running good!!! a little tune up and I think I put in the wrong gas...weed wacker takes higher ratio of oil to fuel...so its kinda sputtering and smoking a little and stalling when I take my finger off the throttle!!

[3rdgen.maple]

Mailman is actually a mail lady and no the wife is thin to begin with. I was being a wise guy. Hues I would think if your big maples have nice big crowns and lots of limbs on them and good foilage they will be fine. If I understand it right it only really effects the tall straight trees that have only small crowns and just foilage at the top. I personally would skip tapping those particular small foilaged trees and see how they react next spring and summer to the thinning.

[heus]

3rdgen they are all ancient trees with no branches for 50-60 feet and small canopies. (This woods hasn't been logged since the 1860s-80s and at that time I think it was only select cut.) Thats my biggest problem in my bush. Huge beautiful trees but below average crowns. My sugar content last year was only 1.5 to 1.9% on average. I do have many 8-12" trees that are underneath the canopies of the old sugars.

[SapZilla]

Exactly what I am afraid will happen to many of my trees.

Your worried that your 150+ year old trees are going to stop growing for a couple of years??? Really???

[heus]

Your worried that your 150+ year old trees are going to stop growing for a couple of years??? Really???

No,
Im worried that I will have branch dieback.

[heus]

Well, the logging is done. Like I figured I have lost a sugar maple to wind. It was knocked over by a relatively mild thunderstorm. Only about 16" DBH but counted at least 80 rings. I cut through some old tap holes made by my great grandfather. The last time the woods was tapped (before last year) was around 1965. I can actually look at the rings and see exactly how many years ago this tree was last tapped. Amazing how the wood stains above and below the hole. I was also surprised at how old the tree was. There are maples in the same area that are almost three times that diameter. Made for some good firewood, though. I am already prepared to lose a few more trees to wind this winter.

[heus]

:mad: Lost seven more sugars on the edge of the new cut-off woods to high winds today. Amazing what little root systems these ancient sugars have when proteced by a massive forest. Now that they are exposed to the west winds they are falling like dominoes. Very sad.

[TF Maple]

:mad: Lost seven more sugars on the edge of the new cut-off woods to high winds today. Amazing what little root systems these ancient sugars have when proteced by a massive forest. Now that they are exposed to the west winds they are falling like dominoes. Very sad.

I think that is why I only have about 12 maples on the West side of my woods and over 60 on the East side. I assume the wind took them out many years ago and the beech trees took over. I'm working on correcting this situation and release the young maples on the West side.

It is too bad when we lose trees, but they do make great firewood so it isn't a total loss.

[spud]

Sugar Maker's

I thinned out a 20 acre wood lot 30 years ago and only kept sugarmaples standing. I spaced them 30 feet or so apart. The land looked like a park when i was done. I may have caused some growth problems but who really knows? The last thing i would worry about is a tree on hold for a couple of years. You will not lose prodution you just might not gain for 2 years or so is what some study's suggest. I would question this research because nobody knows for sure how much each individual tree would grow in each individual woods. What i do know for sure through my own experience is that i am getting older and can't do all the work i once did. With that said i suggest thinning while you still have the back to do it. You don't want to be sitting on the porch drinking lemon-aid when your 65 saying (boy i sure wish i thinned that woulds out 25 years ago. The land that i thinned out so many years ago still looks great to this day. :)

Mike

[heus]

Well I surveyed the damage myself and was relieved to know that only 4 of the seven (actually its 8 or 9) trees are sugar maples. The largest sugar is probably 150 years old. Two giant red maples came down with the sugar in the same clump of roots. Those three took out two sugars and a tulip tree. Lost another sugar a ways away and a beech. I estimate probably 4-5 cords of wood from all of these. Maybe more. Good thing I heat my home with wood. I am working on my 2011-2012 wood anyways. This will keep me busy. I am fortunate that I have 300 or more mature sugar maples and another 150 or so reds in my woods. With only 200 or so taps.

[Revi]

We did a thinning about 5 years ago and are really seeing some results now.

We had a couple of trees fall over, but released a lot of smallish maples that are coming into the tappable size now.

I look around all the time and think why didn't we tap that one? They are coming in nicely now. We added about 50 taps last year, and will have around 500 when all is said and done.

Now I think thinning the lot was one of the best things we did.

We even did a bit of pre-commercial thinning and got paid to cut the kind of crappy popple that feeds the evaporator and makes that maple slurp we all love!

[3% Solution]

heus,
Reds or sugars doesn't matter they are still maples and they produce sap for boiling.
Are you using health spouts?
If so, (and it probaly doesn't matter) go to your trees and check last springs holes. If they are healing up the tree is growing, no harm done.
Just remember the older trees will grow slower now, Dr. Perkins will correct me on this if I am wrong.
However, the older ones will show some healing so as to fill the hole from last spring.
I checked some of our trees a couple of weeks ago and the health spout holes from last spring are almost closed up.
These trees were in a forested area and maybe 5 to 7 years ago it was cleared for a house lot. There are 30 sugars in an open center area that were left for tapping. Also there is a stone wall and there are lots of BIG maples there. I have 92 taps on line in this area. The sap runs from 3% to 3.3% most of the season.
So, just give it sometime and it will work out for you.
Hang tight and wait!

[heus]

Lost another sugar to wind along this line. Discovered it yesterday.

[Revi]

That's a drag, Heus. I hate losing maples. We had a couple of huge popples and a red oak go down. They thinned along our west line and we haven't lost any yet. They did a really crappy job logging, though. We're really glad we didn't have that guy do our lot! Here in Maine we may actually benefit from the thinning. I noticed that the trees on that side seem to be growing like mad. We were thinking of buying that lot, but now that it's been hammered, we don't need it. We're both over 50, and won't see any benefit in our lifetimes now from buying that lot.

[ADKMAPLE]

heus seems to be losing alot of maples to wind, he must have some significant winds in Ohio. I had 30 acres of my 50 acres logged of predominatly white pine and some hemlock. IT is all on the top of a hill. The only trees that blew over were additional hemlock and pines. Not a single hardwood fell over. Iguess I dont understand how those mature maples could be subject to being blown over so easily.

[heus]

The topsoil in my woods is very thin. The roots dont go down any more than a foot maybe. Im convinced that these trees never had to build a significant root system because they all ptotected each other from the wind.

[heus]

Discovered today that I lost 8 more trees along my property line to the wind. 3 sugars and 5 giant reds. Getting tired of this but I must say I called it from the beginning.

[heus]

Update: I have lost 6-7 more mature sugar maples to the wind since my last post. Also a few more reds. I will have enough firewood for some time to come. Forunate to have several hundred more large sugars standing (knock on wood, but not too hard or they might fall over). For those who haven't read the entire thread, I have a very mature woods that was once part of a much larger tract of land. My neighbor (and relative) had her woods logged over the summer which left many of my 150+ year old sugars suddenly exposed to the west wind. My trees have very shallow root systems and many have tipped over like dominos.

[CBOYER]

Talk to your forestry eng, it will recommand you for planting fast growing species that could reduce effect of winds or roots separations.

[VTwoodsbum]

heus -new to tradder but my family has been logging for long time. look at your crowns you said they small the root system aon a hardwood is typicly a third larger thats not much in shallow roots. dont fell bad though lots of wind damage up here too lost about an acre in one spot.

[yarg]

I did not read the whole thread but is the site where the trees are blowing over overly saturated...water puddles?. If so be sure to check uphill of the problem area and make sure the logging did not create water diversion to said trees..this will make them much more susceptible to blow over. Also you can use a hand tool and try to divert excess drainage from trees. Usually the soft maples are more of a problem with blow down because they tolerate wet sites and even when their crowns are not released tend to be a blow over threat(hate em for this cause they always seem to take out nice sugar saplings and poles)...in your case even more so since they were released. My guess is the sugars might be getting some extra water though.

[brookledge]

This maybe a dumb idea but if you have an area where a neighboring lot is cleared or thinned where you might have wind damage couldn't you create some type of cabling system? I know a tree can be cabled to hold it together. but what about some type of tree to tree to in a sense strengthen them?
Keith

[maple flats]

The forester idea is best. Your county likely has a forester on the payroll, or your landgrant college may have forester volunteers. Or bite the bullet and hire one. They can advise the best treatment to minimise loses at the least cost.

[maple flats]

It might actually be a small commercial thinning the most at risk trees. Sawlogs bring in money, sometimes better than bigger piles of firewood. In any case get the forester.

[heus]

My story continues. I lost 10 more 100-150 year old maples to wind damage two days ago. Only half were uprooted the other half were snapped at the base. Damaged a lot of mainline, too. This totals around 36 huge maples and several smaller ones lost the past 3 years. I have not even been able to cut all of the ones that had fallen previous to the last damage and i burn around 16 full cords a year in my house and in evaporator. My cousin across the road lost some nice sugars in his sugarbush, too.