Anyone else not getting the flows they would expect?

[dhbiker1]

This season is summing up to be worse than 2 years ago, which was a horrible year. The weather seems perfect and I have 15" vac, but flow is just marginable. I tapped on 1/25 and have collected only 200 gal sap from 150 taps. Still have not drawn an ounce off the 2x6, but it is getting close. I'm worried it is just going bad sitting in there.

Anyone else experiencing similar and have an theories as to why?

hope you are doing better than I,

Jason

[northwoods_forestry]

Not doing too badly in So Vermont. I've been averaging a about 1/2 gallon of sap/tap/day all this week without vacuum.

[Steamhead]

I've had a few decent days with a 1/2 gal/tap but the rest have been terrible. Yesterday I got about 8 gallons out of 85 taps all gravity. I don't think the night time temps have been cold enough, hoping today is a little better. My neighbors think the season is over but I'm still hopeful.

[Starting Small]

Looking at this weeks overnight temps in CT it does not look promising. Tonight and tomorrow night may get below freezing and then it is all above 32 every night through the weekend.

[CTfarm]

I've had a couple of decent days, but the rest has been a bust. I hope to get enough today to add to my stored sap and boil tomorrow. Does not look good for most of this week.

[dhbiker1]

yes, the weather after tomorrow looks like it will be very mild until the weekend. The buds might be exploding by then! On another note, the sap in my collecting tank was looking a little cloudy.

[lafite]

I collected 25 gallons yesterday. today they are starting to move but the sugar content is low in Southern CT. I took this week off to tend to it but I might be playing golf instead....

[Quinny]

We are also off to a slow start. Tapped 8 trees mid-week, 3 did well, at least a gallon or 2 per day, the rest, barely had enough sap to cover the bottom of the pail. Not sure why there is such a difference in trees, last year they were all decent. Could it have anything to do with the 5 poor producers being on a hill?

14 taps
Boiling in 4 big restaurant pans on our backyard evaporator

[batsofbedlam]

This season is summing up to be worse than 2 years ago, which was a horrible year. The weather seems perfect and I have 15" vac, but flow is just marginable. I tapped on 1/25 and have collected only 200 gal sap from 150 taps. Still have not drawn an ounce off the 2x6, but it is getting close. I'm worried it is just going bad sitting in there.

Anyone else experiencing similar and have an theories as to why?

hope you are doing better than I,

Jason

I tapped the same days as you did, and have collected over 19,000 gallons of sap and have made 240 gallons on mostly dark amber. I don't understand why the big difference as we're not that far apart.
My vacs are pulling 25", however.

[markct]

Yea i agree with batsofbedlam, i am having a decent year here in ct too, 90 gal syrup so far from around 6500 gal of sap off 750 taps, 65 of which are on about 18 in of vac, so not sure what the big difference is with your setup. I tap about 80 percent red maples so rarely have high sugar, but this year is much lower than usual, but still making syrup just fine!

[wkies]

Here is a link to a NOAA weather station about 100 feet from our sugar house. Sap runs have been ok. About a hundred a gallons off of 300+ taps last few days. No crazy runs.

You'll notice that temps here (30 miles of NYC along the coast) have just touched below freezing for a short while - nothing sustained.

http://amazon.nws.noaa.gov/nexhads2/...FC3&pe_code=TA

[valleyman]

I have a few in Norwalk and a few in Ansonia, both towns being in the southern part of Connecticut and they have been producing pretty well. For example from the most active 10 taps, I got 9 gallons yesterday, 7gal the day before. This past week has been slower than the previous week with about 30-35 gallons from 12 taps. The week of February 5th- 11th I got over 50 gallons from the same 12.

[Tanta K]

Very, very slow at the park. Probably getting 1/3 less than last year at best. Weather? One farmer came by and said it's bad because it was a dry winter. Another older man said it was bad because with the warmer temps the trees never went into a real state of dormancy. We have our open house on the 3rd and will probably quit after that and think Spring!

[Tanta K]

I only got 23 gallons on Sunday from 25 taps and it took 48 hours to get that much. Last year, the same taps gave me 50 gallons over 2 days. But, things were pouring fast today, maybe it'll be more for the end of this week.

[somershobby]

My flow seems to differ from tree to tree I have two that give me an inch or two in the bucket per day and one that gives 5 gallons per day. I cut trees for a living took down two maples (with a teer in my eye) yesterday one wasnt running it was dry. the other had a river spewing out as my saw went in. the trees were only 50 feet from each other and looked identicle

[Starting Small]

There has not been a day where a tap has given me a gallon. I am somewhere closer to 1/4 gallon per day. This is my first year with tubing and I put the spiles about an inch into the tree. Is that far enough or could that be why I am getting such low production. In 2 weeks and 38 taps I have only collected 50 gallons...total! I am just shocked.

[tonylaroccia]

We tapped this weekend in Salem down by the Eight Mile Jason. I put 60 in..buckets of course. So far we have gotten only 2o gallons of sap. It seems like 2/3 of the taps are producing nothing but a trace. Also, a few of them the sap was brownish. Not enough snow this year I believe
Andy

[CTfarm]

I got some good flow from the usual trees. Again, some trees gave little. I'm not sure if I'll keep the sap though. Suppose to be warm for three days and I just finished a boil. Temps look good for next week.

[PerryW]

Or the lack of snow caused the frost to go deeper into the ground than usual.

[Starting Small]

Or the lack of snow caused the frost to go deeper into the ground than usual. so does that mean the season will just be late this year instead of early like we were originally thinking?

[lafite]

I think the season is coming to an end. Once the buds come out...game over.

[Agent914]

I am thinking the 2012 season will be short due to lack of snow and higher than norm temps combined with a basically dry winter and low sugar readings :/

Last year (2011) the flow was great, I had to empty the buckets every day (very cold). I would drump the ice when it built up and the boiling time was shorter with higher yields.


Agent914

[Brokermike]

I have the flow but my sugar is really low!

[thecabinguy]

Seems like most of us in lower New England are experiencing poor sap flows this year. I think the extremely mild winter that we've experienced has really diminished the sap volume. I think we may have had about one solid week this winter of ground freeze in early January. A friend of mine cuts trees for a living and says many maples were pouring out sap in mid January. Looks like I missed that. I'm looking at trees producing a few cups of sap in a week. I'm already writing this year off. I think mother nature has had her way with us this season. I'm glad some people are getting some sap. I've been tapped for 2 weeks and have collected about 15 gals of sap off 40 taps. Pathetic. Most of my reds are bone dry. No sap at all. I think they must have all flowed in January. Oh well, there's always next year.

[merryall]

I think you are right about the lack of frost. We did a few thousand feet of fencing in late January and also excavated for the sugarhouse - there was less than 3 inches of frost in the ground on the coldest days and on some days it was less than an inch (in open fields with southern exposure) with the surface thawing during the day and refreezing at night. That said, we collected slightly more than 100 gal of sap from 20 taps in five days in western CT and have about 2 gallons bottled, so we are running close to 50:1.


Seems like most of us in lower New England are experiencing poor sap flows this year. I think the extremely mild winter that we've experienced has really diminished the sap volume. I think we may have had about one solid week this winter of ground freeze in early January. A friend of mine cuts trees for a living and says many maples were pouring out sap in mid January. Looks like I missed that. I'm looking at trees producing a few cups of sap in a week. I'm already writing this year off. I think mother nature has had her way with us this season. I'm glad some people are getting some sap. I've been tapped for 2 weeks and have collected about 15 gals of sap off 40 taps. Pathetic. Most of my reds are bone dry. No sap at all. I think they must have all flowed in January. Oh well, there's always next year.