leasing trees

[jake]

hi..found a farmer that has quite a few trees ..he wants to know how much i will pay him to tap them...they are silver maples ..what does one pay for this and how about long term leases ...any information or opinions on this would be greatly appreciated ..thanx...jake

Silver maples only have about .5 to 1% sugar and they bud out the fastest of the maple trees. So using the rule of 86. at .5% sugar you are at 172 gals. of sap to make 1 gal of syrup. 1% sugar you are at 86 gals sap to make 1 gal of syrup.

[syrupmaker]

HI JAKE
I DO THE SAME AS YOU ARE THINKING OF DOING,BUT I TRY A DEAL WITH LAND OWNERS TRADEING MY FINISHED PRODUCT,I HAVE TWO THAT I NEED TO SUPPLY SYRUP FOR LAND OWNERS RELATIONS WHICH WORKS OUT TO ABOUT $40 FOR THE YEARS LEASE.

[lobstafari]

Silver maples? I think he should pay you! I think that would be more work than its worth, just in firewood, let alone collecting all of it.
If they're sugars, Id pay .35/tap or maybe even upto .50 for roadside trees.

[jake]

thanx for the replys....

[lobstafari]

Sorry to sound so dooms-day-erish in my last post. If you do decide to lease these trees, I'd go with a 10 year at least, and check out this link, it has an agreement all printed up:

http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmaple/mapleinfo.htm

good luck!!

[bobbyjake]

I agree with lobstafari and syrupmaker. We try to rent trees for finished product working out to about a gallon of syrup per hundred taps or $.35 each. I would have to think this through further though with silvers. If you really need the product, you might want to set up a long-term lease (at least 10 years) and buy the sap off the owner minus the tubing installation costs, 0.5-1% sap only brings about $3 a barrel though. Good Luck with that one.