Timing of sugar maple structural prunes.

[allen gaddy]

I am in the northeast and have been trying to do my structural/weight reduction sugar maple prunes in the summer. I have a few on the books right now and would love to get them done earlier than that. I have held off on doing them in late winter to May because of sap flowing from the cuts I will be making.

I will prune a sugar maple during the spring if I am only making a few cuts. Doing a full canopy weight reduction seems like it would be a bad idea. The customer is worried and I told them I could get a cable in it for now with the intention retentioning the cable after we do the reduction.

What are your thoughts.

 

[ATH]

Sap loss is insignificant.

But if that is the concern, why not do it now?

Summer is fine too...

 

[allen gaddy]

Sap loss is insignificant.

But if that is the concern, why not do it now?

Summer is fine too...

I have a backlog until March so now is not really an option. It would be peak sap flow... I used to do them whenever but we have had regular summer droughts over the past 7 years. The droughts have been hard on the sugars and I read something that made me start scheduling them at more specific times. It probably wasn't even a reputable source.

 

[JD3000]

You can see far better in the winter for sure which seems to help me

 

[ATH]

I have a backlog until March so now is not really an option. It would be peak sap flow... I used to do them whenever but we have had regular summer droughts over the past 7 years. The droughts have been hard on the sugars and I read something that made me start scheduling them at more specific times. It probably wasn't even a reputable source.

Usually we schedule work as it comes. Sometimes we prioritize some trees based on timing. For example, when dead wooding oaks, we schedule those for November. Still some brown leaves hanging on, but outside of Oak wilt threat time. If that call came in May or October, we do them when it is best.

 

[Mitch Hoy]

We try not to trim maples during uptake because the high sugar sap stains bark. Pretty sure the stain comes from microbial colonization going after the simple glucose chains. It could be possible that the pruning wounds could be more easily colonized by something adventitious because of the presence of an easy meal. We all know how well maple wood deals with adventitious microfauna...