Unless you're talking retail sales of cider you're limited to 200 gallons of production for a 2 adult household. Let's say you played lawyer and made 200 gallons in the beer tax category (less than 7%) and 200 gallons in the wine tax category (more than 7%).
We're going with dwarf trees because drinking that much you don't want to be on ladders. 500 trees/acre. At the over thinner's on the forum low rates of 1 bushel per tree, 500 bushels, 22,500lbs.
At a low yield of 15lbs per gallon, 1500 gallons. Well above the tax free limit of 200 gallons or the legal loophole of 400 gallons.
You could plant 1/8th (62 trees) of the acre for 200 gallons or about 1/4 (125 trees) of the acre for 400 gallons.

So how many tall trees could you leave to get enough sun on 1/8 to 1/4 of an acre? A lot.
Plus those numbers are low IMO. I'm going to get around 25 gallons off one semi-dwarf tree this year and it hasn't recovered from pruning and I think it wasn't that good of a year.

I wouldn't leave the tall trees "within" the orchard. They can be close to the north, depending on the sun's angle fairly close to the south and 75yds east and west should give you a full day's sun.
75yds east and west is plenty, I only wish I could get the neighbors to cut their tall trees, I'd guess 30yds starts cutting my sun around 6pm in the summer, my 40' tree about 30yds gives me sun around 9am.

Your getting 25 gallons per tree or over 8 bushel per tree?

Shags exude poison to apples from their roots which affect some varieties more than others but are certainly likely to delay establishment of trees. Google alleopathy for details.

I install small orchards for a living and avoid juglans like the plague, but any full sized forest tree will out compete establishing fruit trees nearby and slow growth and diminish yeald substantially.

Mykl, you are absolutely right. I googled for some info and found out that shagbark and other related species to black walnut are much less potent then BW. Another one of my preconcieved notions shot to hell. Thanks. You've probably saved the lives of some shags and me from at least one example of professional incompetence.

LOL, one of us was bound to learn something.
Before I found out I could actually get apples by spraying I was going to put hickory in the back yard. You had me thinking my garden came close to being a goner.

Thanks everyone.

I'm happy that shags aren't poisonous, I already planted 8 apple dwarfs this summer in an area I cleared along the road front just south of the shags. These trees are for my own hard cider consumption eventually.

One thing about shagbarks... they are very straight trees with a small diameter canopy, so they don't shade too much though the leaves are huge. I may experiment and clear out the smaller trees and check the sun exposure inside. I'd hate to cut 'em down, it's strange that my property has no many shags, I don't see any elsewhere.

The 1-acre orchard is a thought for retail hard cider... just seems an ideal location outside of the trees. I can imagine local hard cider could be a good sell, and the lifestyle seems appealing. I was thinking of planting dwarfs and semi-dwarfs.

Myk1, I'm amazed at your cider output, that's impressive.

For retail it's a little different because you don't have the 200 gallon limit (which is a lot of work for personal use plus a lot of drinking). But it sounds like it is worth it to you to at least try it and see if you need to maximize the use of every inch.

Orchards are finding that dwarfs produce the best, easiest to deal with and bear earlier. At least that's the modern claims.
In my yard I like to use all the vertical space I can so I go with semi-dwarf when it fits.

I think this is a juicy year, I got 9.5lbs per gallon with my Cortland, at least too much rain is good for something. I ended up getting 11lbs per gallon today but I had to work for it. I was going to quit at 12lbs per but the pomace felt too wet. Just one more quart, so close to 5gal, just a few more drops.

My friend figured up how many pounds per inch I'm using and I'm pretty sure there are commercial presses that are higher, but they probably don't have time to wait on days when the apples aren't giving up the juice.

"We're going with dwarf trees because drinking that much you don't want to be on ladders. "
Too funny!! That was priceless advice!
seriously..I have 14 shagbark hickories here, that are a good 40 years old..they run on the south and east side of my orchard, and never give me a problem. The only anticipated problem is that where there are nuts, there are squirrels and chipmonks..and the nuts don't ripen till fall, which leaves them needing something else to munch on all summer! They would probably come without the hickory trees...who knows..but I have never seen anything have trouble growing near them. I do see the orchard gets afternoon shade in the fall when the sun starts to be lower, but it has never adversely affected my fruit trees or bushes. Donna

I missed myk1's quote regarding dwarfs and ladders... that is some practical advice.

Donna, that's good to hear. How close are your hickories to your apple trees? So at least I can probably just be concerned about sun exposure. I'm also in NY by the way.

Oh yeah, I've got chipmunks and squirrels galore, and at night sometimes deer and bear. My hickories start dropping bombs pretty early, sometimes late July. They surround my house too, so it's like having golf balls raining on the roof from August through October. I've noticed that insect-eating birds like woodpeckers and nuthatch love going up and down flaky bark trees like the shags and some flaky oaks, looking for insects. I think the flaky bark is an attraction for insects, I wonder if this provides a benefit for the orchard.

Whether squirrels will take to harvesting your apples is never certain. They tend to be more drawn to peaches and pears, often stripping them while they are still green. I manage orchards where these fruit are often removed and apples usually left alone.

With apples they prefer earlies and most of all Honeycrip. For hard cider you could grow late tart varieties and have better odds of avoiding trouble. I have harvested Goldrush in an orchard where every other variety was stripped by tree rats. On a normal year the squirrels are already into the acorns before the lates become attractive.

Not sure you have enough season to properly ripen Goldrush, however. You're right on the cusp. This year most of mine aren't going to reach highest quality.

Maybe Melrose and Jonathon would be good if you aren't going to use traditional English cider apples. R I Greening work well in cider also and squirrels aren't real fond of them.

silentlou...i'll get out there today and take some pics for you, and post them tonight. The trees on the east side are farther away (maybe 20 feet), but the trees on my south side are probaly 12 feet from where my plantings of all kinds start.I have deer and bear, coons,possums, skunk, fox...you name it, i've got them running through my orchard..it's a freeway! I get the majority of my damage from moles, though..haven't seen too much damage from other animals.
I know what you mean about the hickory nuts dropping...mowing in the fall sounds like ping pong balls under your deck! My ground is littered with little holes where the squirrels bury them...
My hickories didn't give me anything to speak of this year..they have one huge bearing year,(last year for me), then they rest for a year or two..so this was going to be light year for them anyway, then along came the hail storms and knocked a ton of them down early.
I love my woodpeckers..I have the smaller (6" or so) kind in my hickories, and I have a big (14") woodpecker that comes to a dead tree I have on another fenceline..he's been going to that tree for 2 years, so I leave it there for him..it drives my neighbor nuts, he wants the tree for firewood, but I won't give it to him!!
Are you Upstate N.Y.? I am between Albany and Syracuse.
One other question..how old are your Hickories? I was told by an old timer that years ago, the government(don't know if fed. or state) had a program either during the depression or just after to give people fruit and timber trees if they would plant them, to help people have a future source of food and/or timber. Most of my neighbors have huge stands of pine trees..I guess the people that lives here wanted nuts! Donna

here are some pics of how my hickory trees are oriented in my orchard...Donna

Here is a link that might be useful: orchard

Hi Donna, I really appreciate this, especially the pictures. I'm in the southwest, east of Jamestown near Allegany State Park. I'm inside the Lake Erie snowbelt so we probably both get equally crazy snow (last year got over 200"), just from different lakes.

Yeah I love the woodpeckers too. I've noticed too that 1 dead tree is a home for one of the woodies. They'll visit my sunflower seed feeder in the winter sometimes.

I have to guess on the age of the hickories (also have some oaks)... I'd guess the oldest ones are 80-100 years, then there are many more I'd guess around 20-40 years old, and also a bunch of 10+ year old ones. There is a wooded county property right next to me which has 100 acres of pines planted by the CCC. There are lots of these CCC (depression era like you indicated, federal program) plantings all over the area both in NY and PA, it really helped the land to recover from the logging era of a hundred years or so ago. It's usually easy to spot these plantings because of the straight lines and sudden tree type change in the forest. My property is very irregular and mixed between hickory, oak, and hemlock for the most part.

I didn't realize that those plantings were state wide, (i should have, seeing that it was a government program!!)..i just never thought about it.
Years ago i used to travel out to brockport almost weekly, so i know your area well.
i am usually sheltered here, because i am at the valley floor, between 2 small mountains, but last winter it was like i had a bullseye on me..none of the big storms missed me, and usually, many do.we got almost 200" last winter, our usual average is around 120", ... i tend more to get ice storms, late winter, which has it's own set of problems for trees, but there isn't much you can do about it, just wait till spring and clean up.
so...are you going to plant apples? i hope you do. i just saw an awesome hard cider recipe that is mainly apples, but has a splash of orange juice and cinnamon in it..the guy let me taste it fresh(before any fermenting), and it was delicious..i could have drank the whole thing.i can't wait to see what it tastes like after a few months.
good luck..donna