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Maple Sap

I'm making compost tea using maple sap rather than water (as it comes out of the tree, not syrup). It's only an option for a small part of the year, but tree blood seems like a great base to work off of.

The sap I just used has a ec reading around 300 ppm and a pH of 6.5. I aim for a tea with 900ppm using worm casting, a wood & cow poo compost, fish emulsion, soluble kelp, soluble humate powder, & sea bird guano. I add molasses too, but about half what I would to tap water.

Has anyone tried this before, or have any idea what is in sap other than the little bit of sugar? I haven't been able to find a good analysis of what is in sap.
 

Maple_Flail

Well-known member
https://wildfoodism.com/2015/02/24/the-health-benefits-of-drinking-maple-tree-sap/

Reading between the lines, Consuming sap would be giving you trace minerals (cal and mag to be exact) beneficial amino acids , and sugars.

Sounds like a bloom booster to me, and i can see it being used as part of a tea for full term. if you are running DTW, I can see it causing issues if you recirculate (gumming up and such)

the sap its self is made up of 1 or 2% sugar?.. the boil down is real.. many memories of going to the grandparents farm when i was a little boy dumping in barrels of sap to get so little out of the boiler after the weekend or however long it was.

I would consider cooking it off just slightly, to try to get the sugars up to a slightly higher percentage (5%? maybe), just be aware, it would likely be foolish to store this tea for long. unknown enzymatic content could lead to surprise fermentation.

Also known enzymatic mixes shouldn't be left with it, IE malted barley, and baby coconut water. etc.
 

TychoMonolyth

Boreal Curing
My black maples push out 4-6% (brix meter to measure).

I used to make syrup but I don't anymore. You can freeze it, like you do water and use it when you want it. Fill plastic water bottles and freeze them. Don't fill them too much or they'll bust! If you don't freeze them they'll start to ferment after a few days.

Should be good to make IMO2/3/4.

Can you flush with it?
 

MJPassion

Observer
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Send the sap to a lab for analysis!

I’d be willing to bet that you could water that sap right into your soil as is.
After all it is plant blood (more or less)!
 

Maple_Flail

Well-known member
My black maples push out 4-6% (brix meter to measure).

I used to make syrup but I don't anymore. You can freeze it, like you do water and use it when you want it. Fill plastic water bottles and freeze them. Don't fill them too much or they'll bust! If you don't freeze them they'll start to ferment after a few days.

Should be good to make IMO2/3/4.

Can you flush with it?

It would be interesting to see what other sap bearing trees could have beneficial sap in it. I know some birch and ash weep a little bit if cut in the spring. maybe a particularly weepy weeping willow for to use as rooting compound.

I don't think i'd flush with something that could start to ferment before it dried out, this would inhibit much mycrozial activity i think
 

Maple_Flail

Well-known member
Send the sap to a lab for analysis!

I’d be willing to bet that you could water that sap right into your soil as is.
After all it is plant blood (more or less)!

water with natural cal mag? sounds like Coco coir's best friend

There are a number of trees which can be tapped for their sap, and many which should not. For example, Willow bark contains salicylic acid, which is the active ingredient of Aspirin, so the sap should not be consumed as a food.

Suitable trees:

Birch
Larch
Lime
Maples
Sycamore
Walnut

http://www.judyofthewoods.net/forage/tree_sap.html
 
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Drop That Sound

Well-known member
Wonder if you could inject the sap directly into the plants via IV bag with a drip.

Also wonder if you can boil cannabis sap into syrup, i'm sure it would take a lot, but its already more concentrated right?

Whats the sugar content of cannabis sap anyway?


I live on the north west coast and been dreaming about tapping all the big leaf maples on the property, and making a few small mobile sugar shacks on wheels that I could park anywhere. I thought about infusing the syrup with oil and selling the bottles in all the local pot shops, as well as the regular syrup at the farmers markets to help pay the property taxes every year.

I havent really seen many syrup products, especially sourced locally from the same county.

Maple candies, maple butter, maple cream, maple ale.. yum!
 

Gry

Well-known member
One of the original the cannabis prodoucts sold here was a candy, combination of hash and maple sugar.
Wish I could recall the name, it is mentioned in the book by Jack Herer,, ads for it can often be seen in older catalogs.
I do a reproduction for myself, and enjoy it a great deal.
 
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