So, why did it just keep coming?

[danno]

In looking at some of the State threads, it looked like allot of us experienced the same thing - with vacuum and no freeze in 2 weeks for some of us, sap flows continued pretty well. I was still getting 1/3 to a gallon per tap within a 24 hr period day after day, with no freezes over a 12 day period and temps in the 70's. Mid way through the warm up, I actually saw sap yields increase to close to gallon/tap following one night when we got down to 34. For the first time ever, I pulled the plug while sap was still flowing well. Sap was .7 and the next few days were forecasted to be in the 80's. I went fishing:)

Does anyhbody have any reasonable explanation for this. The only thing I can think of is that the warm up came early in the season while taps were still very fresh.

[markcasper]

I have an explanation.....I tapped one woods one 3-9 and 3-10, sap poured out on the south slopes. 95% of the trees on top of the hill, up from the south slopes were bone dry, (they had not awoken yet.) Throughout the week I monitored the top of hill - starting to slope to the north trees and every day, little by little they all started in within 5 days. The only full week of sapping was full of 70 and 80 degree days. By 3-18, Sunday, 82 degrees, I had the largest collection of the season in a 24 hour period.(almost 2 gallons per tap that day) By this past Tuesday, still getting over a gallon per tap per day, but the quality was so bad, shut the pump down and called it over. Extreme heat in the past has always lead the trees to produce good. (I think the inside pressure raises because of the heat)

Sugar % went from 2.5% to 1.3% in 10 days, that is something I have never seen before this year. I have never ran sap with that low of a test. Its good it happened this year as long as it was crap anyway.

I have never seen trees green up this fast ....ever and in March? Everything is one full month ahead here.

[Walling's Maple Syrup]

In looking at some of the State threads, it looked like allot of us experienced the same thing - with vacuum and no freeze in 2 weeks for some of us, sap flows continued pretty well. I was still getting 1/3 to a gallon per tap within a 24 hr period day after day, with no freezes over a 12 day period and temps in the 70's. Mid way through the warm up, I actually saw sap yields increase to close to gallon/tap following one night when we got down to 34. For the first time ever, I pulled the plug while sap was still flowing well. Sap was .7 and the next few days were forecasted to be in the 80's. I went fishing:)

Does anyhbody have any reasonable explanation for this. The only thing I can think of is that the warm up came early in the season while taps were still very fresh. That is what we are trying to figure out. I think it has something to do with all the water in the ground in our geographic location. If you remember back to the year 2010, it was similar in that we went quite a few nights without freezes. For us, the sap actually stopped running after 3 nights of not freezing that year.( we keep detailed records of all our bushes from year to year) and didn't start again until the next freeze. That year was very dry with all the springs dried up and no water in the ground.. This year is very wet here. I've talked to some loggers that can't work in the woods without ruining everything with ruts. More water in ground means more sap in tree. Sidenote- we tapped earlier this year(jan.29), than we did in 2010(feb 10).

[OldManMaple]

We got between 5-600 a day from 640 taps all week with the last freeze last sat night I think. If this trend continues I think we need insulated lines and to put the compressors back on the bulk tanks

[sjdoyon]

After taking Thursday afternoon off, rock maples started running that night and haven't stopped. Averaging over 200 gallons an hour but getting plenty of slime now in the line. Very colds temp arriving on Monday so hopefully the slime disappears, still making nice amber syrup just having to change the filter on the RO each day. Reds are starting to bud up here so only the rock maples are producing. Not a good year for the sugarmakers at the lower elevations in this year, they seem to be off by fifty percent in their production.

[OldManMaple]

Ya we pulled 120 reds on Thursday, the good news is I only had 120 reds in the bush. So my tap count is down but the sugars are tight. The reds were popping right before my eyes. You could almost hear them. We have little yellow flowers by the ditch. When we got there there were 3 budded, 1/2 hour latter the ditch was full of them.

[220 maple]

Danno,
I'm disappointed you broke my personal record with a twelve day run without a freeze, I had a eight day run two years ago without a freeze. The difference this year I believe is I didn't have the moisture in the ground to keep them going. I'm really not disappointed that you ran for 12 days, I'm more disappointed you had to experence the difficulties of make syrup with the types of heat waves I deal with every Spring.

Mark 220 Maple

[PerryW]

I dunno? Thermal expansion?

FUnny, after the only real sap runs on Mar 11-12, I got very little sap for the next couple days (50 gallons per DAY) until it finally hit 70 degrees, then I got 200 gal. It ran lesser amounts each day, but still better than 50 gal per day.

[danno]

I dunno? Thermal expansion?

FUnny, after the only real sap runs on Mar 11-12, I got very little sap for the next couple days (50 gallons per DAY) until it finally hit 70 degrees, then I got 200 gal. It ran lesser amounts each day, but still better than 50 gal per day.

Wasn't that weird! I got the same thing. Sap production actually spiked mid way through the heat wave - and we didn't freeze rthe ight before the spike and my trees/ground were well thawed well before then - so it's not like my trees were just opening up. Weird year.

[sapman]

I'm not far from you,Danno, but I did not get the production everyone is talking about. I know I tapped before you, but many others did, as well. Maybe I screwed up by not using CVs this year? or maybe since most of my trees are budded soft maples?

[RollinsOrchards]

We experienced a similar thing even though we don't have tubing or vacuum. We averaged 80 to 100 gallons of sap per day for that week on nearly 200 taps.

My theory was/is:

Our soil was frozen deep this year, and even though the snow melted the roots were still frozen hard, and the sap is stored in the roots. The hot temperatures caused the trees to try and run hard and my guess is that if the roots had been thawed we would have had one good run and it would have reached the buds in no time. But where the sap was still frozen in the roots it took a long time for enough sap to thaw out and climb the tree to get to the buds.

I have several distinct groups of trees, some roadside, some field edges, some next to a brook, and two separate deep woods bushes. (200 taps is a small fraction of my possibilities, but you have to start somewhere) I had some trees that never ran more than a pint per day, and some that ran the buckets over three days in a row, and those trees were within sight of each other. One group of trees is split by a brook, with some on an easterly slope and some on a westerly slope. The ones on the westerly slope ran yesterday at 2 quarts per tap, the ones on the easterly slope mostly remained dry with a few giving a cup full, and they never ran more than a quart per day average ever all season.

This was just a poor year. I put out four times as many taps in order to make the same amount of Syrup as last year. Some groups of trees would run good one day when others wouldn't, and vice versa. This season the most I ever collected was one day I got almost one gallon per tap average. No other days ran more than half a gallon per tap average.