Birch Sap Question

[elevenses]

Hi All

I have never collected birch sap before, but after reading some great blogs about it I thought I would have a go. before I do I thought I would ask a few questions, really sorry if they are dumb ones.

firstly there are very few what I consider mature trees away from roads near me but there are a few close to roads.

Is the sap ok to use if the tree is so close to exhaust pollutants ?
do you have to have the land owners permission to do this ?

thanks for any advise

 

[abushcrafter]

be careful what plastic tubing if you use it to collect the stuff. Other wise it will wreak your sap.

PS it has started to flow in some places

 

[match]

there's an article on birch tapping here:

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/index.php/Food-Foraging/Collecting-Birch-Sap.html

As far as permission goes, you'll definitely need this as you're damaging the tree to get to the sap. While the tree should recover fine, the landowner might not be too chuffed - especially if they were growing that tree to get a nice bit of wood out of it to carve a kuksa or spoon

Pollution shouldn't be too much of a problem, since trees mostly absorb pollution through their leaves, and the sap here is rising up from the roots. However, if the tree's main water source is run-off from the road, there might be more chemicals in than you'd like. (Bear in mind though that something like 80% of all fruit and veg grown in Europe is within 100m of a main road ).

 

[elevenses]

Thanks for the advise

The tree's are on public land so I assume the local council are the land owners, as for the water source im not sure as the trees are above the road and about 15M away, I think I will leave these and wait until I find some in a more suitable environment,

Ill keep searching