fertilizing sugarbush

[woodsmith]

I've read a little bit here about fertilizing maple trees. I keep a large compost pile and am considering using the compost along with wood ash to fertilize my trees. I always have great results with compost on perennial gardens and vegetables so it seems like it might be a good thing for maple trees as well. Any thoughts??

[brookledge]

I would think that to a cetain degree the leaves that fall and decompose are reenergizing the soil. Areas where trees are in yards where the leaves are picked up off lawns etc. might need more fertilizer.
But I'm no fertilizer specialist.
Keith

[Thad Blaisdell]

I have 8000 taps..... how many bags of 10-10-10 is that going to take? Cant see that happening. Just the visual thought of pushing my little lawn spreader around all of my woods gives me a chuckle.

[TF Maple]

I have 8000 taps..... how many bags of 10-10-10 is that going to take? Cant see that happening. Just the visual thought of pushing my little lawn spreader around all of my woods gives me a chuckle.

Make a small hole in the bottom of your pockets, fill your pockets with fertilizer before you walk your vacuum lines.:lol: :lol:

Seriously, if you burn wood, the ashes have the minerals from the trees and you have to get rid of them somewhere, so I return them to the woods. The leaves have a lot of carbon captured from the air so they are good for the soil too. A woods doesn't need a lot of fertilizer but adding a little won't hurt and a little lime would be good every few years.

[PATheron]

Thad- Are you going to be processing sap from 10000 taps with the 1200 or are you going to get a bigger ro? Sorry to get off topic. Theron

[Thad Blaisdell]

I will be using my 1200. I had 4900 taps last year and using the NSF-270's I very easily kept up. I will be starting out at 10% this year, plus I have a steamaway that raises the sap another 3.5-4%. I did 8.5% last year and was making 45 gallons per hour. I boiled every 36 hours and would boil for aprox 3-4 hours and went very smoothly. This year I plan to boil every night for the same amount of time. Bumping up the RO a little and boiling every 24 hours I think I will be on target to keep up quite nicely. Last year I did not push my evaporator very hard at all, so I know that if I have a big run I can push it harder and should be able to handle any amount of sap that flows in. If I can not keep up I will simply buy another tower and add it on.

[PATheron]

Thad- Last year was a bad year for us with it being to warm. How much sap would you get in a 24 hour period off the 4900 taps? Theron

[Thad Blaisdell]

Last year the sap started flowing the last day of feb. and it ran at a rate of 200-300 gals per hour every hour all season. It only froze 3 times. Twice was for about 5 hours and the third was for about 36 hours. Then it started running again at the same pace. We had no large runs at all. And around here if you did not have vacuum you did not make syrup. My neighbor has 500 on gravity and he made 30 gallons. I run a two stage vacuum which ran at 27.5 inches of vacuum, that made all the difference.

[PATheron]

Do you have any pics of your stuff? Sounds like you had about the same weather we had down here. Theron

[Thad Blaisdell]

I do but have not organized anything. I will try and put something together today. I designed my sugarhouse by visiting about 10 different sugarhouses and took all the best features from each. It is extremely user friendly. I had 3 2100 gallon tanks upstairs. 2 for sap one for concentrate. plus a 1100 gallon tank for permeate. This year I will have 6 2100 gallon tanks upstairs. 3 for sap, 1 for concentrate and 2 for permeate. The permeate will be used to wash my RO, run my vacuum, I will also use it to wash my pans every night, and the other million things that you need water to do. It is by far one of the easiest sugarhouses to work in that I have ever seen.