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As you are looking for land, keep your eyes out for what trees are in the surrounding area around the property. You might be able to get permission to tap to get more trees without having to buy as much land. Red Maples make fine syrup, as others said, they respond well to vacuum.
Around my sugarhouse I'm about half and half, sugars and reds. I'm on 26-27" vacuum and I got .52 GPT syrup 2 yrs ago and .48 GPT last year, that is 1/2 gal of syrup average the last 2 seasons, before that I had far fewer reds but never got over .38 GPT, but my vacuum was less too.
Reds do make some very fine syrup for sure.
I'm right here in central NH as well, and I'm lucky to have a majority of sugar maples, but tap a few reds. The lines with reds don't run seem to run much lower in sugar content or volume over a season for me, on average. When I had buckets, I would check the sugar content of every tap, and the reds were just a bit lower. I do know that they bud out earlier, and perform much better on gravity (natural vac.) than on buckets. I pull the taps on those trees sooner (I've just learned to look at their crowns and can tell when the buds are at the point it's time to stop). Having an RO also helps in that I don't worry about the lesser sugar content. Tap 'em all and keep boiling!
As always the trader comes through with great info and advice. Thanks Russ, I will PM you if I can get out there before the open house weekend. Good luck to all. Putting the buckets up this weekend.
I am in NE Ohio and this is my first year using a Shurflo vaccum system. We tap mostly red maples. We have roughly 400 taps. As of this evening we've collected almost 1600 gal of sap. And I don't have a RO. We tapped our first tree Feb 2. Last year on buckets we collected, from 410 taps, roughly 1700 gal. in 6 weeks. Sure the sugar content can be lower. Sure they are a little more finicky(sp? Haha) But we still make great syrup. We are a first generation sugaring operation. I wouldn't hesitate on a property if you like it, if red maples are your deciding factor. They still make great syrup.