you have, from the pics, an 'ornamental' (fruitless) cherry tree named 'wine' or 'burgundy' something after the leaves. all cherry, plum, peach trees weep a certain amount of sap, much like pine trees. they leave from wounds in the bark that can be caused by pruning, abrasion, insect infestation, or natural 'growth' breaks in the bark the clean, dried sap is a non unpleasant 'resin' type incense. I would scrape some of that away, and see if you have insects chewing up the tree bark (you'll see holes going into the branch) - that's one of the prime causes around here.

Impossible to tell with info provided. 1 pic = 1k words. Dan

I agree. Any kind of sapping from an undamaged trunk of a Japanese maple is highly unusual and would indicate some sort of problem. I am not aware of any pathogens that would result in this sapping (but that certainly isn't a definitive diagnosis!). Do there appear to be any obvious holes behind the sap? Is this the same Crimson Queen you were asking about previously regarding leaf color and leaf dropping? That would kind of make some sense.......

Thanks all. I chose Norwegians because I have a 16year old specimen in the front yard in a planter w sprayers that has survived decimation by deer and sprawls in a wild, amorphous manner. I wanted something that would grow just tall enough to block the relatively new neighbor’s yard but not the mountain view we moved here for. I like the idea of training some of the limbs to grow upward. The one in the front yard did so on it’s own. We have Utah clay so it’s been tricky figuring out an appropriate watering schedule as clay is more prone to promoting overwatering rather than under watering. I have a 3ft soil moisture meter, and after 4 days it reads 10+ (on a 10 scale) at 18” (the depth of the root ball). Re possible trauma - we had a crazy windstorm Labor Day weekend w 50-60mph winds spiking at 110 per the power company in explanation for 200k customers without power, some for up to a week. Maybe I should be grateful these guys survived that. I do question whether these trees are staked too rigidly whereas the one in the front yard has never had any support to my recollection. Also of note, the same guys who staked the trees trenched around the mulch and placed “a little” roundup in that trench. They are pros so I would hope they would know how much and how close is safe to place near trees. Re dry grass - the surrounding grass is field grass that just about never gets watered. We live on 2-1/2 acres. We have lawn grass around the house that we maintain with sprinklers. The weepers edge our dog playground. We have about 40 trees, some planted 16 yrs ago vs 20 footers installed last year. Most are on drip lines because there just isn’t enough time in the week to run around w a hose especially as fall takes away more daylight. I have had issue w consistency of drips and can’t think of a reasonable way to measure how much as come out (ie a bladder system that it can drip into like a ziplock bag.). I’ve had to replace five drips on our big trees placed last year but others more downstream are not blocked. Re photos - the first photo in the original post was taken within the site. The other two were downloaded and were already in the proper orientation in my photo album. The website did not allow me to reorient the picture. Dying is dying at 90, 180 or 270 degrees. I will try to take the photos directly while in the website to bypass that programming flaw.