ID Different Maples in the Winter

[walhondingnashua]

I stated a thread in the Inglenook forum about making maple syrup and I have received good information. However, I thought this question might be better here.
I can easily ID the different types of maple trees in Ohio when they have their leaves on them and I can ID a maple from other species in the winter. I understand plant anatomy and know how to use a Dicot. key but I am struggling to tell the difference between sugar, silver and red right now. Does anyone have a trick of way to tell the difference between them at this time of year. Sometimes all the education in the world is not substitute for experience so I am asking those with experience.

 

[Sawset]

Bark and crown would be what I would tune in to first.
Red, silver, sugar
Bark - smooth, rough and flaky, rough and course
Crown - straight up, oval to round, round and loose
Branching - straight, small clustered, large and open
I could tell from a distance, but don't generally try to look at the details. Larger and open grown helps. A dense woodlot or younger is a little more difficult.

 

[lost in the woods]

my experience is to basically what sawset just posted. . . using a combination of the bark, (#1) for me and also the shape of the crown, however! silver maple can be alittle more site specific (think wet areas, floodplains, streambanks) and red maple isn't shy it will grow just about anywhere and here in PA sugar maple likes a more alkaline soil, but could also pop up just about any place. . . just get a tree ID book and spend some time in the woods. experience is the only way to get proficient at tree ID

 

[hickoryhoarder]

The trunks are distinct, though I'd be able to show you much easier in the woods than describe it. Red maple tends to be a fairly tight bark on the trunk and gray. Silver maple is a more shaggy bark. Sugar maple is distinct, but I don't have good words. Easiest thing is to have someone who knows show you three different trees.

Each also has their own gestalt/shape, as far as how they branch. Sugar maple will not have red buds.

 

[Kevin Weis]

You will need a field guide and look at the buds and bark. Silver Maple is typically a floodplain tree as well as Red Maple. If it is growing outside of these areas it has been planted or seeded from said adjacent floodplain area at least in a forest setting. Sugar Maple does not like floodplain or wet areas. Sugar Maple on mature trees has bark in larger scales than the other Maples. There is also Mountain Maple, very similar to Red but not as much a wet loving species. Hope this helps.

 

[TreePointer]

Good info already.

My best advice won't help you now, but the first thing I recommend is to learn the bark, silhouette, and other characteristics that belong with each tree when the leaves are attached. In that way, you'll have certain identification of the tree be able to test your knowledge. You could even mark your desired sap trees at that point, too.

One of my favorite guides is small but extremely useful:

Winter Tree Finder: A Manual for Identifying Deciduous Trees in Winter (Eastern US)

It will show you how to differentiate maples by buds and leaf scars.

 

[TedyOH]

I've been processing maple sap as a hobby sort of thing for 7 years or so to help curb my cabin fever towards the end of winter....the maples by me are next to impossible to ID without leaves....some sugars have bark like silvers and some have bark almost as smooth as reds and beech....good news is all can be tapped...obviously you want sugars because of the "higher" sugar content of the sap (whopping 1 or 2% higher) - boiling any of it down sucks so I don't discriminate when it comes to what species of maples I tap. I can ID a maple in the woods pretty easily with out leaves as the maples are probably 80 - 90% of the trees in the woods by me. Tap any maple this winter / spring and pick out the sugars this summer.

 

[mark cline]

Our maples are a mix of hard (sugar ) and soft maple. Silver maple and red maple contain sugar but about half as much sugar maple . Soft maple more than silver or red . Our syrup is always on the darker side due to the abundance of the soft maples ,
We have a telephone pole out on the edge of the sugar bush, it seems that it always gets tapped .People that come out into the sugar bush , get a real kick out of it .

 

[TedyOH]

I found a little work around the dark syrup by not boiling down more than 75 gallons of sap at a time...once i get through 75 gallons, I set it off to the side for finishing and start on a new batch of 80 gallons...seems to be working.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[mark cline]

I found a little work around the dark syrup by not boiling down more than 75 gallons of sap at a time...once i get through 75 gallons, I set it off to the side for finishing and start on a new batch of 80 gallons...seems to be working.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

We try to do that too , but when we get a good run of 1200 gals. plus ,we need to boil .We push the marketing for the darker syrup , so our regular customers know what our syrup is all about . We have a very robust maple flavor , so our syrup is used for more than just table syrup