OMSPA Sugar Bush Management Final
Managing a sugarbush for maple production.
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Plantation Development & Management
Managing trees planted for maple production.
Red maple as crop trees for maple syrup production
The often overlooked value of red maple trees for syrup production
Silvics of North America: Hardwoods
Silvics of North America describes the silvical characteristics of about 200 conifers and hardwood trees in the conterminous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Individual articles were researched and written by knowledgeable Forest Service, university, and cooperating scientists. They were reviewed by their counterparts in research and academia. The project took 10 years to complete. The revised manual retains all of the essential material from the original publication, plus new information accumulated over the past quarter of a century. It promises to serve as a useful reference and teaching tool for researchers, educators, and practicing foresters both within the United States and abroad.
Silviculture, and Why it Belongs in a Sugarbush
We are seeing new challenges for our maples and their offspring. Invasive species, climate change, poor forest management, and other factors are all serious threats to the productivity of harvesting maple sugar in the decades to come. However, there are things we can do to protect the tradition of maple sugaring in our regions. Silviculture is our primary tool.
Spotted Lanternfly: A New Sugarbush Threat
A new foreign invader could have a substantially negative impact on the eastern North American hardwoods in general, and sugarbushes in particular. The Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula, SLF) was first detected near Philadelphia, PA in 2014 and since has spread throughout much of the Commonwealth and has been sighted in about a half dozen New York counties and in several sites in southern New England.
Sugarbush Management and Chainsaw Safety
Maple production requires sugarmakers possess a diverse set of skills in order to tend the forest resource and maintain a productive sap collection system. Maintaining a healthy, diverse sugarbush that maximizes its growth potential requires periodic vegetation management activity. Also known as thinning, vegetation management is the process of reducing competition for light, water and nutrients of crop trees. Felling trees is the key activity in vegetation management and may be done by logging professionals in support of formal forest management plan objectives or by the sugarmaker or landowner on an as needed basis and including response to extreme weather events.
Sugarbush Management Notebook
A sugarbush is a special type of woodland. Woodlands include a complex mixture of natural processes and attributes such as soil type, elevation, tree species, types of wildlife, history of use, tree age and more. Foresters can help maple producers gain an in-depth understanding of these factors to achieve a healthy and productivity sugarbush, but there are several steps a maple producer can take on their own.
Sugarbush Mapping: Finding information to assist in forest management and planning in the sugarbush
Technological advances by maple equipment manufacturers, continued outreach and education by local, state, federal, and provincial maple organizations, and widespread adoption of new management practices by producers have revolutionized the maple industry over the last 20 years. The design and layout of sap collection systems and advances in vacuum pumps and releasers has resulted in higher per tap sap yields well beyond the old standards. Increased per tap volume has been matched with modern high brix reverse osmosis systems and efficiency gains in evaporators, pushing the economic potential of making maple syrup to new heights. Value-added products, niche marketing and branding, and social media and online platforms, coupled with health conscious and savvy consumers,have altered the retail sales landscape and linked rural maple producers to consumers around the world.
Sugarbush Mapping: What’s in your woods? Measuring density
Looking around your woods youÕll see that there are far more trees on the landscape than you have time to measure. The science of forestry has taught us that similar stands (ones that have the same species composition, size classes, productivity, and management history) do not need to undergo a 100% census to get an accurate picture of what is there. Foresters use sampling methods that inventory stands to get an accurate representation of what is in them and the quality of the resource.