If you aspire to make homemade maple syrup next year, right now the top, like 3/4 of tapping sized trees are covered in flimsy green seasonal growths that have easily visible subspecies-specific characteristics, and are a much better basis for tree identification than bark texture and branch structure in January.
For sugars it does, they are fairly slow growing among the maples. Reds grow much faster and can hit that diameter in a lot less time, 15 years in a sunny location. Silvers are even faster and can hit that diameter in 10 years. I had a silver maple taken down last year whose trunk was wider than me. It was only 20 years old.
Yes, just be aware that reds (and silvers) bud swell very early, so you'll want to tap your tree before they do. Where I am in PA they bud on average near the end of February.
You tap when the weather is right just like with any other maple. It’s just that your season will be shorter. Where I live, tapping season is December-January, typically whenever the weather looks favorable (below freezing nights and above freezing days. A 25 low 40 high is good).
If your tapping season is later (because the winter is colder) the red maples will bud later too.
we have a hybrid red and silver maple in our backyard that we know was planted in 1951. We bought the house 45 years after that primarily on account of that tree. The original owners and arborist Ian Bruce told us that these hybrids were widely planted in the 50s in southern Ontario. Our leaves genuinely fall between the two according to this chart. Worth keeping in mind if you’re wondering about your own trees.
There is a maple on my property line that resembles this description. The leaf backs are silver, and the lobes are slender and pointy, but they don't quite look like the silver maple leaves and the bark doesn't break up the way silver maple bark does.
Not by me. I tap silver and Sugar, and just today figured out 2 norways (but they collectively gave about a gallon of sap all season last year and I won't tap them again).
They're quite identifiable from photos of twigs and buds if you take the time to learn and compare! The buds are pretty distinct from one maple species to the next, no leaves are necessary. Took a course in college that was primarily winter tree and shrub identification myself.
They definitely are easy to id when you know what you're looking for. But you also need to have some of that stand with low growing branches because we no one's vision is that great to see the scale on a bud 150 ft up.
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u/SunriseSwede 2d ago
And miss out on a never ending game of "is that one?" with the kids??!? Ha ha, good and timely, thank you!