A number of entrepreneurial landowners in Aotearoa New Zealand have invested in growing maple trees and some are harvesting sap from mature, forested trees. We caught up with Tim Lee to find out more about his maple and birch syrups journey.
Why Maples?
We were lucky enough to purchase a property just out of Alexandra in Central Otago three years ago that already had 200 x 21-year-old sugar maples growing on it. To be fair, the maples were one of the reasons we liked it, having always had a keen interest in deciduous ornamentals from a young age. The autumn colours are amazing and will only get better as the trees increase in size.
How big are the trees now?
Comparatively, our trees are mostly small for their age. I think this is due to the dry climate and hot/cold weather, although they could have had a bit more care and attention in the years prior to our purchase (i.e. extra irrigation and fertiliser).
To compare growing areas, my brother planted sugar maples on the family farm in Ngakuru (between Rotorua and Taupo) around 30 years ago. With no irrigation or fertiliser, his trees are now approximately 90cm DBH (DBH is the standard for measuring trees and refers to the tree diameter measured at 4.5 feet above the ground). Whereas our 24 year old trees have an average DBH of maybe 25cm, although one tree in particular (the one I've tapped) must have gotten its roots into the irrigation canal and is around 60cm DBH.
How do you care for the trees?
All our maples have drip irrigation. Previously, the regime was around 4 litres every two days, which I have increased to 24 litres every two days. Also, due to the lack of organic matter in the soil, I’ve mulched every tree with old baleage (that was a fun job...) and pruned up to chest height. I’ve also added a nitrogen based fertiliser annually.
So far results have been encouraging. Already some trees are displaying annual growth of up to metre and we’re now getting flowers and seeds, which is early compared to their North American counterparts (which are 30 to 40 years old before they start flowering). One small tree in particular, maybe only 3 metres high, produced close to 2000 seeds last year which are now germinating in the shade house.
Have you collected sap and made syrup?
As stated earlier, there is a tree with a big enough diameter to tap, although there are probably a few more now that I could do. From one tap (starting early July through to maybe mid August) I was getting around 2.5 litres of sap daily. Of course this depends on the day, as you need a below freezing temperature at night and above freezing during the day for the sap to flow. Whilst most days are like that in Central Otago, there are somedays where it stays below zero all day.
I tend to boil the sap down on top of the fireplace and the result is a delicious, unique, almost butterscotch flavoured syrup, quite different to the supermarket variety you can buy.
I also tap our silver birches, but they tend to be a bit later, with a massive sap flow and a dark almost treacle tasting syrup.
Any plans for the future?
In the future, once the trees are bigger, I imagine we could have a network of hoses connected up to the trees with gravity (maples are planted either side of a gully) taking the sap down to a collection point for reducing down to syrup. Maybe we need a business trip to Canada to purchase equipment for this!
All photos supplied by Tim Lee.