Maintaining a Healthy Sugarbush
Knowing how to properly maintain your sugar bush — a maple producer’s most valuable resource — is a critical skill.
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Knowing how to properly maintain your sugar bush — a maple producer’s most valuable resource — is a critical skill.
Acid deposition induced losses of calcium (Ca) from northeastern forests have had negative effects on forest health for decades, including the mobilization of potentially phytotoxic aluminum (Al) from soils. To evaluate the impact of changes in Ca and Al availability on sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) and American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) growth and forest composition following a major ice storm in 1998, we measured xylem annual increment, foliar cation concentrations, American beech root sprouting, and tree mortality at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (Thornton, New Hampshire) in control plots and in plots amended with Ca or Al (treated plots) beginning in 1995.
Two main issues relate to the sustainability of maple sugaring; tree wounding and sugar removal. In other words, does a tapped maple tree grow more wood than is compartmentalized (functionally “removed by the tree’s normal wound response process) each year and/or does sap collection take more sugar from the tree than can be readily replaced through photosynthesis? These two issues, although separate in some respects, are inextricably intertwined.
Tapping trees has an impact on the value of those trees’ logs for lumber.
The ALB poses a grave threat to maple trees, and to the maple syrup industry.
The range of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) is expected to shift northward in accord with changing climate. However, a pattern of increased sugar maple abundance has been reported from sites throughout the eastern US. The goal of our study was to examine the stability of the sugar maple southern range boundary by analyzing its demography through the southern extent of its distribution. We analyzed changes in sugar maple basal area, relative frequency, relative density, relative importance values, diameter distributions, and the ratio of sapling biomass to total sugar maple biomass at three spatial positions near the southern boundary of the speciesÕ range using forest inventory data from the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis program over a 20 year observation period (1990Ð2010).
Forests of northeastern North America have been exposed to anthropogenic acidic inputs for decades, resulting in altered cation relations and disruptions to associated physiological processes in multiple tree species, including sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.). In the current study, the impacts of calcium (Ca) and aluminum (Al) additions on mature sugar maple physiology were evaluated at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (Thornton, NH, USA) to assess remediation (Ca addition) or exacerbation (Al addition) of current acidified conditions. Fine root cation concentrations and membrane integrity, carbon (C) allocation, foliar cation concentrations and antioxidant activity, foliar response to a spring freezing event and reproductive ability (flowering, seed quantity, filled seed and seed germination) were evaluated for dominant sugar maple trees in a replicated plot study.
High levels of atmospheric sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) deposition have substantially damaged ecosystems in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Efforts to quantify damage have largely focused on aquatic effects2 However, limited recovery of surface water acid?base chemistry in response to large (>40%) decreases in S deposition over the past two to three decades has been attributed to depletion of soil calcium (Ca) and other base cations that may be ongoing despite declining acidic deposition. Availability of soil Ca has also been linked to changes in terrestrial faunal and vegetation communities in Adirondack hardwood forests.
The allocation of nonstructural carbon (NSC) to growth, metabolism and storage remains poorly understood, but is critical for the prediction of stress tolerance and mortality. We used the radiocarbon (14C) Ôbomb spikeÕ as a tracer of substrate and age of carbon in stemwood NSC, CO2 emitted by stems, tree ring cellulose and stump sprouts regenerated followingharvesting in mature red maple trees. We addressed the following questions: which factors influence the age of stemwood NSC?; to what extent is stored vs new NSC used for metabolism and growth?; and, is older, stored NSC available for use?
Nonstructural carbohydrate reserves support tree metabolism and growth when current photosynthates are insufficient, offering resilience in times of stress. We monitored stemwood nonstructural carbohydrate (starch and sugars) concentrations of the dominant tree species at three sites in the northeastern United States. We estimated the mean age of the starch and sugars in a subset of trees using the radiocarbon (14C) bomb spike. With these data, we then tested different carbon (C) allocation schemes in a process-based model of forest C cycling.