Back in late Jan/early Feb. we were thinking of tapping for sap, doing some reading and the temps were going above freezeing so we did one tree and were getting sap, so we did a few more. after I figured out an evaporating program that was productive we ended up with about 22 taps. things were going great. we have
enough for our two families and gave a tiny (very tiny) bit away.
Temps are up and buds are starting and I will probably remove the taps today. I would like to prepare for next year. in the woods there are many maples. I want to identify each and identify what kind of maple they are. many are to small to tap. so I was figuring on transplanting some. I have had some luck moving some maples as high as 10-12 feet with a small backhoe, but would like to move bigger how big is too big?. I do have a excavator with a 1or maybe 1 1/2
yard bucket
How close do I dare dig (remove a tree) next to a tree I plan to tap
should I thin around the bigger maples? How far?
I have a few maples (I call
fence row trees) that have a large trunk (maybe 2 foot DIA.) and it splits into many smaller (8-12"). as many as 7 or 8. should I prune these down to one? when would be the correct time of year to prune maples?
