IDing Maples: Soft/Red vs Rock/Sugar/Hard

[logbutcher]

For the Northeasters around: methods to ID Red from Hard Maple by the bark and wood only ? Pics appreciated.

Since I can't do any cutting, we had to order our first log load for next year's firewood. The logs "look like" Red Maple: dark brown heartwood with white/cream wood around, and the usual heartwood rot in many of the ends. The bark is a dark brown with irregular furrow. ( Yes, I know, "give us pics". Hard to get out with this new implant, and I don't know how to post pics. True confessions.)

Hard or Sugar Maple wood is all one color: a whiteish to cream throughout.

Thanks.

 

[LumberjkChamp]

First of all, are you asking how to identify Maples or stating how? In the case of the former the Sugar Maple has light chocolate brown colored shoots while the Red Maple....red shoots.

I understand you said you have a log load so you might not have branches, let alone shoots. The difference is in the bark. The bark of a mature Red Maple is scaley with long peels. There also could be several varietys in your area with a slightly different apperance. This makes it tricky. Its sapwood tends to be white. A mature Sugar Maple's bark will tend to be more furrowed. Middle aged trees seem to also have whitish, or lighter colored patches of bark. Its sapwood will appear off-white to light yellow.

If you are talking younger trees both trees' bark will be smooth. The Red Maple being grey and the Sugar Maple being brown.

Also Sugar Maple is more dense than Red Maple. So much that if you've been cutting either one and then switch to the other you'll notice immediately.

If you were asking, I hope you find this a satisfactory answer.

 

[logbutcher]

Near hit. Yes, a log load, 24 footers.

All I have to go on is the bark and wood. The bark is dark brown, not scaley at all, with irregular vertical furrows.

The wood looks like all the Redd/Soft Maple cut over the years: white/cream sapwood, darker brown heartwood tending to rot in most trees. Talking to my buddy who got it from another local logger, it is probably Red Maple. Hard/Sugar Maple is not common Downeast: wet, poor, bony soils. You've got it all in the peoples' republic of Vermont.:msp_biggrin:

Much thanks. I've got to learn to post pics......someday.

 

[Guido Salvage]

As the old saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words".

 

[logbutcher]

As the old saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words".

Si.
And: Cuando merda tiver valor,
lo pobre nasce sem cu.

 

[needwood]

I get lost too!

For the Northeasters around: methods to ID Red from Hard Maple by the bark and wood only ? Pics appreciated.

Since I can't do any cutting, we had to order our first log load for next year's firewood. The logs "look like" Red Maple: dark brown heartwood with white/cream wood around, and the usual heartwood rot in many of the ends. The bark is a dark brown with irregular furrow. ( Yes, I know, "give us pics". Hard to get out with this new implant, and I don't know how to post pics. True confessions.)

Hard or Sugar Maple wood is all one color: a whiteish to cream throughout.

Thanks.

Some times when an arborist friend of mine delivers a load of rounds to me I get lost also! You know what I say?< If it burns,buck it,split it,stack it,burn it""""" Good luck friend!