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I have two red maples on the north edge of yard/woodlot. They both have just developed long splits in the bark from the ground up to about ten feet, the bark is pealed off of the trunk for about four inches on either side of the split. The split is on the sunny yard side, but that part of the yard is still semi shaded so for the life of me I can't understand how water uptake and temperature differential could swell the trunks and split bark like that. Any ideas what happened?

Frost and sun damage. you might want to call in an arborist and see if painting them might cure the injury. They will probably live for a while but when you get a bad winter and they could fail to leaf out. Sorry.