I was always under the impression that the Birch sap became too thick to tap for, once the growth rate fires up in late March early April?? Hence the bleeding should stop once the thickening of the sap takes place?
Birch tapping - is it damaging to the tree?
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If you have coppiced a tree, you have made a commitment to the tree to keep doing it. Otherwise the tree would become quite dangerous, as the newgrowth never will be as strong as a nevercoppiced trees branches. Not even if the newgrowth was to become 20 years of age. The connectons of "wildshoots" as we call them here in DK, to the trunk is not nearly as strong as a branch that was always there.
A coppiced tree is nowhere near as strong and vigourous as a tree that has never been cut or trimmed. There are loads of attackpoints for deseases and fungusattacks.
In fact you have decided to slowly kill the tree, the very first time you layed your saw on it.
This said, coppiced trees can be very beautyful to look at, and they do have very good opportunities for insects and whatnot to live and survive there. And a wellmaintained coppiced tree, can with no trouble live for many many years. Depending on wich species it is, it will still outlive any of us, as long as its not attacked by any diseases/fungi.
As for tapping, i agree. Spread it out, and if you do not have x hectares of trees to tap, then at least tap in cycles to let the trees recover from year to year. I do not think tapping is a big problem though, depending on how large tapholes you make ofcourse. In fact i'd say that i would be very surprised if smallerscale tapping would cause any problems at all. But the risk is still there.
Birches will bleed tremendously nomatter when you tap. Apart from the leafless season.
Not as bad as walnut trees though. My god can they bleed for days without end.
The bleeding is a good thing though. Do not plug it up, or cover any wounds. Let it be as is, as this makes it easyer for the tree to grow over the wound, and is more natural for the tree itself.
This is maple syrup country, and there are big old sugar maples that have been tapped every year for a century or more. (Although that may come to a screeching halt when the Asian Longhorned Beetle gets here.) The scars are visible for several years but eventually fade. I'll try to remember to take pics when we tap this spring.
One note: If you do make a hole, don't plug it or paint it with anything. That just hinders healing.
One note: If you do make a hole, don't plug it or paint it with anything. That just hinders healing.
how deep are you drilling into the tree to tap it? because the phloem (vessals that transport sugars) are found in the inner bark. anything below the bark are xylem vessals which transports water and nutrience up to the leaves, basicly all wood is made of is xylem vessals and they are not alive. the only living part of the tree is the bark. there is no need to drill deep into the the tree as it will not increese the sap flow but it will encorage the tree to rot inside and eventualy the tree will break. if the bark completely heals over and if fungi has not found its way in the tree then the tree is unharmed.
pete
pete
Peter T, are you saying that a very shallow tap is needed then to take the sap? Will it flow the same , regardles of the depth of the tap? Having asked that, I usually only go in about half an inch to get a decent stream going, never bothered to go deeper as I didn't see the point. Once finished I just push the bark back down and secure with ivy stems etc!!
apart from it being good info and helping the tree to recover quicker, it saves time in the field as well.. Cheers all.
thanks DKW
doing forestry and arb at college does come in handy sometimes
pete
It sure does. Forester and production-gardener my-self.
Dennis
I thought that coppicing often extended the life of trees.
The oldest coppices are over 2000 yrs old,
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/newsrele...36C794FB802574200037E7F6?Open&PrintFriendly=y
http://www.kew.org/gowild/wildscience/charcoal.html
I've recently (3yrs ago) started coppicing a willow in my garden, its only one tree but it has thrown up lots of poles, it was either coppice or remove it as it was going to become to overbearing for the size of the garden.
I cut back some braches on some sycamore in January this year and was horrified how much sap gushed out. When is the best time to cut back trees, if you need too?
I have always cut back the trees in our garden, when they need it, during the winter months, while the tree is dormant.
yes and no at the same time
The newgrowth is looked upon as being aged as completely new. (genetically)
The rootsystem however will still be the age the plant actually has.
Not to mention the disease and fungi possibilities of coppicing, aswell as the fact that when you start coppicing, you WILL need to carry on doing it. Otherwise you have only achieved one thing: making the plant very vulnerable and reduced its sturdiness on top of that.
But many plants do need it though. For OUR sake. Not the plants.
And depending on how you do it, and when, the plant will have suffered little or much damage.
However there is a little "catch" to it.
For simplicity, lets look at appletrees produced from seed.
They live the first part of their life in a vegetative stage (juvenile stage) and will reach their generative stage somewhere around their 20th year or so. Give or take 10 years or more.
It is only in the generative stage (maturity) they produce Apples.
If you where to trim the tree back far enough, you would actually trim several growth-seasons away, thus making the tree younger and possibly even set it back in the vegetative stage.
This means that you can trick the tree to belive it still needs growing to become big and strong enough for producing seeds (apples) and it will do just that. Grow heavily.
But as for anything else, you do make the tree feed off itself for long periods of time. Fruittrees in averys generally do not live for more than 30 years, and they only produce sufficiently for about 15 years, as you do put a bunch of stress upon them.
Some plants do however thrive well with coppicing. Hazelbushes for instance actually need coppicing every now and then, in order to make a solid and sound bush out of it.
Best for the tree is when it is the strongest. This means in full growth early summer (april/may, somewhere around that time)
Best for us gardeners and foresters due to practicalityreasons is midwinter.
However you can cut them back anytime of the year, if the tree is sound and strong. I would still prefer early summer or midwinter though.
And again: it depends what you want to achieve with cutting the tree back. Some trees bloom on 1.year branches, others on old branches. So dependant of the species wether it will bloom or not after cutting back.
Was this nonsense, or does it make a little sense?
Makes perfect sense to me. It explains fully why a lovley bush of Violets didn't flower last year when the previous year it was full. I cut it back after autumn and thus "fooled" the tree into thinking it wasn't ready. Mind you, the blood speed it shot up by was amazing
Edit to add. I think the knowledge being offered is invaluable in the way I look at how they produce and grow, especially when we take vital nutrients from them. Cheers all round guys.
Edit to add. I think the knowledge being offered is invaluable in the way I look at how they produce and grow, especially when we take vital nutrients from them. Cheers all round guys.
That will happen to almost any plant. And it really is amazing to see.Mind you, the blood speed it shot up by was amazing
Basically that is due to that the root hasn't been trimmed back, so the plant has so and so much potential for carrying leafs, wich is not being satisfied by the amount of leafbearing branches.
So the plant reacts to that, and sends a whole lot of newgrowth out to compensate.
(On fruittrees this is actually unwanted, as newgrowth won't bear fruit, and the newgrowth that comes due to this isn't really sturdy at all. The newgrowth that shoots out like a devil in disguise is only attached to the barch of the tree, and will never really fasten itself to the trunk itself, thus making a tree very dangerous in storms etc. if you "forgot" to cut it back at least every 5 years or so.)
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