Dirty Sap

[sawyerkirk]

About half my trees are producing dirty sap, any thoughts as to why they do that? I had a couple last year, but it seems like more than a few this year. I had one real good run a few days ago, 50 gallons off 50 taps (proceeded to dump the trailer over coming across a ditch spilled all but 20 gallons). the past couple days i've only gotten an inch or so in each bucket. Maybe tomarrow we'll have good run. I have goten my new arch done, my pan is suppose to be done any day.

[spencer11]

what do you mean by dirty? i sometimes have yellower sap than very clear but thats all..maybe what your collecting it in makes it look dirty?

spencer

[sawyerkirk]

It's not brown, more of an Amber. It's definately the sap I'm using white buckets and you can see an obvious diierence between one tree and another

[Big_Eddy]

Has it been raining? Rain will colour the sap on some trees and not others depending on which side the bucket is on and and tilt of the tree.

Have you tapped into a rotton spot or into an old spile hole? Both can colour sap.

Sometimes the first week after tapping there is colour from the drilling process.

Some sap is less clear than others - I have some trees which always have a tinge of colour to the sap.


Pictures are helpful

[Redmaple]

It sounds like you had water run down the tree into some of your buckets to me.