Do More Vigorous Trees Dry Up Faster?

[Andy VT]

A thought occurred to me this year.
I had 2 of 28 taps dry up before my season was done.
Both were south facing, which makes sense, but they were also on what appear to be especially healthy trees.
At first this surprised me.
But then I realized, well, the taps dry up because the tree healed.
It does make sense that a healthy tree would heal faster.
So, I thought I'd ask it here:

Does a more vigorous tree dry up its taps sooner?

[DrTimPerkins]

There is no evidence for this one way or the other.

[berkshires]

There is no evidence for this one way or the other.

I don't see much correlation, maybe a little correlation in the other direction (higher producing trees also lasting longer). It would be easy to make an argument why this could be the case - if more sap is flushing out the wound, slowing microbial growth. That said, I think sun exposure at the tap has way more correlation.

GO

[Andy VT]

Guess I won't try to damage any trees then to slow them down!
Obviously I wouldn't do this anyway, but I think subliminally this question came to me in part because a retired apple farmer helping us strategically prune a couple of apple trees told us that apple trees with too much vigor could reduce yield and he actually used a machine to partly damage the roots to slow down some overly vigorous apple trees.
I'm pretty sure this activity will not catch on in the maple world anytime soon!
But it was the first time I had heard of vigor being a potential bad thing in a tree.
(Except maybe in Autumn Blaze maples splitting bark from growing so fast)
Thanks for the feedback on my question!
Andy

[DrTimPerkins]

It is an interesting question, but unfortunately there are tons of interesting questions in maple and not enough time to look into them all.

My initial reaction is that there probably isn't a strong relationship. Cessation of sap flow is not really related to spring radial (stem) growth, but is more impacted by taphole drying, which is itself, not really drying, but rather a natural wound response of the tree tissues to microbes within the taphole. So perhaps a vigorous tree would have a more vigorous wound response, but I doubt that the variation in wound response is huge unless trees are severely stressed (dying) for some other reason. Even a large, overmature, senescent tree or a young heavily suppressed understory sapling will stop flowing sap after a fairly short while...and neither of those would be considered "vigorous."

Then again...there isn't a great way to judge "vigor" in trees other than growth or foliar/branch condition. Our assessment tools are fairly limited in that regard.

I agree that solar exposure is probably more related to sap flow cessation, probably due to warming of the southern sides of trees increasing microbial growth.

[Andy VT]

Wait, wait, wait,
Are you saying everyone is not measuring every tree every year and comparing the output of every individual tap???
(Kidding. I mean I'm sort of doing that. I tap 17 trees)
Anyway, I must admit it is hard to think of a practical application of this knowledge (the definitive answer to my question) if we had it.
But a fun little discussion.
All that said, I still assured the owners of the dried up trees that I think its a sign of great health. A lie told guilt-free. (They are both very healthy trees though as best I can tell... although one has its best years behind it but there are a lot of years)

[Andy VT]

Oh, I forgot to mention that thanks to this thread I now also know of the word "senescent", and thanks to google, I know what it means!
That's pretty cool!

[Vtmbz]

Bucket trees supply more feedback about sap,production than tubing trees, so you will have to lead the rest of us on this. Like many things maple, I’m sure it’s complicated…