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The best things you can do to improve production from upland red maples are 1. put them on vacuum and 2. thin them out to get lots of sunlight to the crowns. They will produce, likely not as well as a sugar maple, but they will produce. Swamp trees are stressed, so will never produce real well...
It's about 50/50 here I've got some big reds with big crowns on dry ground and I've got some swamp maples with wet feet. There aren't many that are truly in the swamp but a lot are close to the swampy areas. I think that I do good to get a quart per tap while the guys with all sugars are getting a half gallon per tap.Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneralStark
Reds are what I've got so reds are what I tap. They are all on my own land so I don't owe anything to anybody to make my syrup.
Russ - Tap them if ya got em. If you have swamp maples, that's what you have. An upland red will definitely produce better though...
802Maple says hi...
Say hi to Jerry for me. I sure could use one of his arches.Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneralStark
Will do. Yes the 802Maple Arch does not disappoint...Quote:
Originally Posted by Russell Lampron
I agree 100% with the thinning recommendation. I did that 6 years ago in 2 stands and saw more sap each season and a bit dryer soil.Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneralStark
of my 225 taps, 2/3 rds are red maples. last year I made .4 gals per tap (my best year so far) but I had to quite a week early to start building my house. had a couple of good runs after I had to call it quits. in the 5 years I've been sugaring I've averaged .3 gpt. my bush is fairly young. I've been thinning it each fall and have been getting improved results. if i get a couple more good runs this year, I'm on track to be above the .3gpt. I have a mix of swamp and upland reds.
I have around 900 sugar and 1800 red/silver mix, on high vacuum. Probably over 50-70% silver in that mix, actually. Maybe half are in water, or are at times. This year averaged 27 gpt sap, .4 gpt syrup. But I do know the sugars really carry a lot, as last year I shut off the softs on March 17, and through mid-April the sugars averaged 45gpt sap total, realistically more because that's averaging everything together til mid-March.
This last week or so I didn't see much sap coming into the releaser from any of the soft maples. Interestingly, I quit Tuesday, and collected 10,000 gal. less sap this year. But syrup production was almost identical. Can't really believe it. I thought sugar was worse this year!
Do you isolate the sugars from reds?? What's your hi and low sugar for the soft and silver? Good info
They can be isolated, and I did go just sugars last year from mid March. But that was graded processing, so I shoulda just left them all on and made more syrup.
The very first year I checked sugar from the soft maples, and from the sugar maples (was mechanical releaser then so easy to check). Sugars were only .2% higher. Should probably compare again sometime but more difficult with electric releaser. Best I've had altogether is 1.7, usually 1.5 and down.