Tapping birch trees kills them

[Geoff Dann]

Somebody posted this to my facebook timeline, and I thought it was worth sharing here. Please don't do this.

http://www.britishblades.com/forums/showthread.php?183754-The-stark-Truth-about-Birch-tapping

 

[Dark Horse Dave]

Thanks Geoff. I recall this issue was raised last year as well; here's the thread for comparison.

 

[nephilim]

Good thread with images to back up the hypothesis. Thankfully I only do the knife in around 30 Degrees then use a long thin flat stick to collect the sap and hammer the bark back in when done. (Similar to JohnathanD on that forum).

 

[Robson Valley]

Very odd conjecture. Birch sap collecting (syrups and candy) is a thriving commercial enterprise here and in the Russian far east, to name two regions.
Must be some major technical differences that lead to mortality.

 

[ateallthepies]

Wow, some good food for thought there, was thinking of trying this and now will put the auger to one side and use the knife method! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Robson Valley]

Based on what I can see in the pictures, very old & mature trees were selected. They are shocked far more than much younger trees.
For commercial purposes here and in Russia, trees in the 4" - 6" DBH class are the best and most tolerant producers.

Second, the wooden (?) plugs that I see are certain to introduce disease (were they dipped in 10% chlorine bleach first? I suspect not.)
Plastics or rubber stoppers, sterilized, are really useful.

If you can begin to estimate the thickness of the sap wood, there's no practical advantage in drilling into the heart wood. While that wood remains wet with water/sap,
the material isn't moving like it does in the outermost 10-20 annual growth increments.

 

[John Fenna]

I have been tapping Birches for years - and none I have tapped ( using an auger) has died. I have used some trees repeatedly, with "rest years", and they are fine and healthy. I use wine making corks, new and unused, as plugs.

 

[Jack Bounder]

It seems the guy making the claims is using a rather large auger. Maybe that's a factor?

 

[petrochemicals]

I wouldn't have thought that they would have died, I see birch with holes in the bark, and saps the antiseptic, and supposed to block the flow when it conjeals. Maybe they're being bled to death.

 

[Robson Valley]

We have varietries of woodpeckers, some called "sap-suckers." They peck patterns of 10 - 50 holes in birch bark.
Many sorts of critters from Hummingbirds to ants take advantage of their work.

If you killed the trees, you made a right mess of the sap harvest.

 

[Stew]

It seems the guy making the claims is using a rather large auger. Maybe that's a factor?

I think that's kinda his point.....

 

[Stew]

I have been tapping Birches for years - and none I have tapped ( using an auger) has died. I have used some trees repeatedly, with "rest years", and they are fine and healthy. I use wine making corks, new and unused, as plugs.

What methodology John?

 

[John Fenna]

I drill a hole (only into sapwood and at a slight uphill angle) of demijohn cork size, fit a demijohn cork with a hole in it (pipe from cork to hole) and when I have collected about 1/2 gal from the tree I move on, closing the hole with a solid demijohn cork. I have seen some leakage around the corks on occasion - but it soon stopped. On some of the trees the holes are visible as dry holes: On some trees the holes have healed over completely.
This year I will not be tapping any Birches... I have an ample surplus of wine already

 

[Stew]

I drill a hole (only into sapwood and at a slight uphill angle) of demijohn cork size, fit a demijohn cork with a hole in it (pipe from cork to hole) and when I have collected about 1/2 gal from the tree I move on, closing the hole with a solid demijohn cork. I have seen some leakage around the corks on occasion - but it soon stopped. On some of the trees the holes are visible as dry holes: On some trees the holes have healed over completely.
This year I will not be tapping any Birches... I have an ample surplus of wine already

Brill.

and tree age? Do you concur with Robin's thoughts on it?

 

[Toddy]

When this came up last year, I thought, "Oh no ", because we've been tapping the ones out the back lane on and off for years now.
A fortnight ago we had one of them felled because it was totaly shading our garden. It was seventy feet high and showed no signs of disease or distress……we pretty much did as John Fenna describes when tapping it, and the others.
The tree was well over a foot diameter too, and no spring chicken, iimmc.

M