has anyone ever tapped a oak by mistake ?

[cavescott]

thats what i've been looking for. always loved looking at V's. thats something i wont forget. paired buds and branches.
OK YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!

[ennismaple]

There have been basswood, elm and butternut accidently tapped in our woods!

[cavescott]

well heading out to pull taps back out of trees that arent maple

[cavescott]

ok when i went to the bush I still had a hard time telling the maple. Or i should say was still unsure of some of the trees. Any other sugestions how to tell them apart. when i went to the oak with alot of leaves still on the tree there were twigs growing straigh across form each other. and the ones i was sure were maple had stagard groth of twigs and limbs. still confused
scott

[happy thoughts]

Find a small twig and look at the buds. The buds will be opposite on maple and ash (and horse chestnut) Leaves still on the tree are a good sign it's oak which tends to hold onto its leaves into winter. The shape of the oak leaves themselves will give it away.

For the best ID, do it during the growing season, the leaves and any flowers and fruits (like maple helicopters) will help you really narrow it down. When you're sure of your ID, mark the trees in some manner so you can find them easily next year. Get a tree field guide you can take into the woods with you or bring your laptop. There are several online guides like this simple one at cornell which has good pictures of the parts you want to look at of the most common species of maple used for sugaring.

http://maple.dnr.cornell.edu/kids/tree_index.htm

Check the links on all the different species pages where you will find closeups of all the parts you want to look for.

also look at this pictorial glossary that illustrates the different growth patterns you're looking for.

http://maple.dnr.cornell.edu/kids/barkglos.htm

Hope this helps and best of luck to you

[cavescott]

thank you for that web site it will help me out alot. this winter will be my best guess and look at the leaves in the summer to see how acurate i am.

[spud]

Its my first year I thought I new one tree from the next. Actually took a forestry course about 27 years ago. I have came across several trees that look like maple to me, but they have red in parts of the bark never really noticed this before and there are no leaves. Sort of has me confused any coments or suggestions.

I have 5000 taps set up this year and all I can do is hope half of them are Maple.

Spud

[4th.gen]

Yup...kind of a funny story. After my father and grandfather passed away, and my brother-in-law and I took over the operation, one of us (still an on-going debate) did in fact tap an oak. We argued about it until spring when I proved it's an Oak. Well, the next couple years we continued to tap it as a joke. The darn thing never produced much! We still laugh about it to this day.

[cavescott]

Ok I figured out why I was having problems figuring out if they were maple trees or not.
The problem is that I have gotten a really good bush and there are very few other trees in it that arent maple. I was just to worried about tapping the wrong ones. After hours of staring into the tops of the trees and probably getting a sore neck I have realized that Im doing pretty well. I removed 3 taps just because I was unsure. I have heard some funny storys by putting this on and got some great help thanks again.

[happy thoughts]

hi cavescott- Sounds like things are really looking up for you I'm glad to hear you did well and wish you a fun and productive season. I love this forum for it's humor. When you find your first dead furry floater, come back all worried and tell us about it. We'll give you funny, I promise!

have a great one!