Birch trees bring in a unique beauty to your attribute with their stippled white colour and papery textured bark . Birch are also tight - grow , so they can be used to create shade where it ’s needed . They ’re even used for crafts . But astonishingly , birch trees can also double as an alternative tree diagram for dough tapping !
Make no mistake — sugar maples are the king of tapping time of year . During late winter or early spring , countless farmers across New England and the upper Midwest trek out into the fading C. P. Snow to tap maple trees . The collected fool ( which is a liquidity ) has a balmy , diluted sugary flavor when in the altogether , but when the sap is boiled , the wet content evaporate , allow the concentrate , sugary syrup that maple Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree are so prized for .
Why Birch Trees Can Be Tapped for Syrup
The reason sugar maples work the best — and the reason for their name — is because the sugar content of their muggins is quite high . You only want about 40 gallons of sugar maple sap to produce a gallon of syrup , among the best of any tree out there . But if you ’re uncoerced to process a little harder — and do n’t mind a slightly dissimilar taste — you may tap birch trees and make syrup in the same way .
Birch tree diagram sap has a lower sugar content , so you ’ll need upwards of 100 gallon of sap to make a Imperial gallon of syrup . That ’s twenty 5 - congius pails ! It ’s a lot of work to tap that much sap , but it may be deserving the effort . Here are four reasons why .
1 . You do n’t have pelf maple on your land . If you do n’t have maple , maybe you have fledged birch rod trees , and you ’d wish to essay tapping even though they are n’t the prime carbohydrate species .
2 . You hold out outside the range of scratch maples . Some far northerly regions of the U.S. and Canada are too inhuman for boodle maples , but birch utterly thrives there . Birch tap is quite popular in Alaska .
3 . You want to extend your tapping season . birch rod Tree often need warm spring temperatures than sugar maple to actuate sap flow . As a result , birch tree tree may be just come out to run as the maple time of year stop — so you clear a few more week of harvesting .
4 . You just desire to try out with something merriment and different ! Birch sap and syrup taste different — more zesty — and it ’s just a sport and coolheaded experience to tap trees other than sugar maple .
How to Tap Birch Trees
It ’s promiscuous to set out tap your birch Tree in the leap . Just select healthy mature Tree at least 8 ” in diameter and drill a short hole with a 5/16 ” or 7/16 ” drill bit — the standard sizes for a tree tap . Drilling into the due south - facing ( sunny ) side of the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree can help . Use standard sap collecting equipment ( bags , etc … ) , and then keep your sap refrigerated until you ’re quick to boil it down .
In short , birch trees put up you a different chance for tip — not necessarily practiced than maple Tree , but subsidiary . Have fun !
This article was written for Hobby Farms magazine . sink in here to take .
