Sap color

[Tim Wagoner]

Ok I have a question for all and I hope someone can tell me. It is early in the season and I have had 3 really good runs here in Kentucky. But the last one I had on one of my hills the sap has a yellow color to it, all the other hills the sap is a clear as water. This one hill has 162 taps on it and they are all tied together by lines that are gravity flow. We had a slight run yesterday and the sap was a clear as it has always been. So why the yellow sap on the last big run??:confused:

[cvmaple]

if you were on buckets I would say it was rain water. I doubt that is the case here though. I hope your season was good other than this.

[Mike in NY]

Ok I have a question for all and I hope someone can tell me. It is early in the season and I have had 3 really good runs here in Kentucky. But the last one I had on one of my hills the sap has a yellow color to it, all the other hills the sap is a clear as water. This one hill has 162 taps on it and they are all tied together by lines that are gravity flow. We had a slight run yesterday and the sap was a clear as it has always been. So why the yellow sap on the last big run??:confused:

I'd guess you have some bacteria growing in your lines. Happens up here in our buckets when the trees don't run well and the temperature gets to warm.A slight tint does not overly concern but when the sap resembles the color of mountain dew we throw it on the ground. 28 below here in NY and I have not even thought about tapping yet

[peacemaker]

had it rained ?

[Brian]

I have had alot of yellow colored sap over the years, and usually comes from water, I have made fancy to B with this sap, I used to dump it, now I boil it just the same.

[Brent]

I also suspect it was water. Even a heavy dew, with a gentle breeze will coat one side of a tree enough to cause a trickle to run down and it doesn't take much to make a bucket look yellowish.

We used to toss it, then we decided to boil it and we could never tell the difference.

[Tim Wagoner]

Got through collecting the sap for the day and and the tank that had the yellow sap in it was as clear as water again. I don't believe it was water due to us not having any rain. I collected 250 gal and the trees were still running at 9pm. When I wake up in the morning I will collect what is out there and start boiling. I have made 24 Gal this year so far. I am shooting for at least 100. Sure wish I knew why the sap was yellow. But it still made syrup it was a dark but tast really good.

[3rdgen.maple]

Raccoon Urine lol. This question comes up every year and it seems the concensus is always rainwater and people always say it never rained so I would love to find out the actual cause of it. Only time I ever seen yellow sap was from rain or melting snow dripping down into a bucket. Would be interesting to hear the cause.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

In my opinion, Bacteria. If it had been a longer time between gatherings and a small amount of sap had been available for the bacteria to grow in, it could color the whole batch. Getting the buckets dumped and back on a routine rapid collection would allow for the back to good colored sap.

[gmcooper]

Over the years we have had spells where we get some yellow sap. Sometimes just a day or so then it clears up, sometimes just one area or group of trees. I have decided that it is likely caused by bacteria in the taphole or in the tree itself. Had it with tubing and buckets and no rain. If anything seems like it happened after a warm spell with a night or so above freezing then the next run it shows up. I have had a few trees on buckets that always had yellow sap. Stopped tapping them after a couple times. A couple of them died a few years later so I assume they had a fungus issue before I tapped them. I have had two bucket trees that had purple tinted sap every day it ran. I dumped sap and they never did run very well.

[3rdgen.maple]

I do have one red that the sap has a purple tint to it everyday. Not a good producer either.