Is the sap of other maples suitable for maple syrup, in terms of quality and quantity of sap produced? If so, it would seem to make more sense to plant faster growing maples like the red and even the ugly silver maples.
What about other hardwoods for making syrup, such as fast growing red and pin oaks, wild cherry, etc.? Jack
Google say's yes:
Blackthorn, Birch and Maple to my limited knowledge. Used to purchase Blackthorn via Welenda SP in the past. Lost source in time.
Bill
I have researched this in-depth. The Sugar Bush Maple takes ten to twenty years to produce enough to make it worth tapping. Red Maples take at least 20 to 30 years.
Honey from these trees was my major interest. The verdict is that honey bees collect that honey and consume most of it as their first food of the spring. If you go further south (zones 7-8), you can get excess Maple Honey.
Dick
snipped-for-privacy@home.net (Bro Jack) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news-60.giganews.com:
red maple makes great syrup. takes a bit more sap to make a gallon of syrup but most sugarbushes in the northeast are tapping both sugar & red maples. you can get more sap out of a red maple but the sugar content is usually lower (but sugar content depends a lot on the weather) silver maples are crap for syrup & norway maples are just evil.
birch, yellow & river(black), make a good syrup. oaks don't have enough sugars in thier sap to bother with (the sap is bitter if you taste it). i suspect wild cherry is in the same camp as oak, plus there is the toxicity issue. lee
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