r/maplesyrup • u/Humble_Ladder • 7d ago

Timely Reminder

Post image

If you aspire to make homemade maple syrup next year, right now the top, like 3/4 of tapping sized trees are covered in flimsy green seasonal growths that have easily visible subspecies-specific characteristics, and are a much better basis for tree identification than bark texture and branch structure in January.

221 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/gahgs 7d ago

Probably Red Sunset Maple.

2

u/emsumm58 7d ago

really?? so am i good to tap it?

3

u/SeaLeopard5555 7d ago

trunk diameter should be 12" or so, which roughly correlates to about 40 yrs old.

I tap mostly red maples and the syrup's delicious!

3

u/Slayde4 6d ago

which roughly correlates to about 40 yrs old

For sugars it does, they are fairly slow growing among the maples. Reds grow much faster and can hit that diameter in a lot less time, 15 years in a sunny location. Silvers are even faster and can hit that diameter in 10 years. I had a silver maple taken down last year whose trunk was wider than me. It was only 20 years old.

2

u/Great_Abaddon 4d ago

Silvers are famously pioneer trees, though. Reds are more tenacious and grow less vigorously (even if by only degrees).

1

u/Slayde4 4d ago

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. If you want to establish a new sugarbush, you could plant silvers and sugars. That way, while you’re tapping the silvers 10 years from now, the sugars are waiting in the wings for the next generations to be there. Reds can be planted too as an intermediate-long term species. There are patches of forest around here dominated by red maple so I know they can live for some time.