How far along do buds have to be to cause buddy sap?

[abbott]

My open yard trees have buds swelled to 2-3 times original length, but not open. Woods trees have slightly swelled buds, but not nearly as much as the yard trees. The buds on the red maples in the area have opened, but i don't have any of those tapped. Should i expect that the sap will be buddy and not collect? I've never still had taps in at this point. With the strange weather, i'm guessing i'm not the only one in the northeast in this situation.

[Greenwich Maple Man]

My open yard trees have buds swelled to 2-3 times original length, but not open. Woods trees have slightly swelled buds, but not nearly as much as the yard trees. The buds on the red maples in the area have opened, but i don't have any of those tapped. Should i expect that the sap will be buddy and not collect? I've never still had taps in at this point. With the strange weather, i'm guessing i'm not the only one in the northeast in this situation.

If you get enought sap boil even if it makes comercial. You can always bulk it and get something.

[hambone]

We are in the same boat in central Maine, the race has been on between the freeze and the buds. We were looking good BUT today the buds swelled. Tonight it is supposed to get down to 16 degrees. Will it be too late? I think I agree with Greenwich, but I sure would like to make some more table syrup. Oh well have to roll with it. Good luck abbott!

[DrTimPerkins]

We are "hopeful", but not "optimistic" that we'll be back in business after this hard freeze. We have collected some amount of sap each day since the last freeze, but stopped boiling the middle of last week due to sour sap off-flavor (due to heavy fermentation in the tubing), although we have left the vacuum on. The trees will undoubtedly still run (at a diminished rate probably) after this freeze and warm-up, but whether or not the syrup will be buddy (or some other off-flavor) is unknown. We plan to let the first hour or two run on the ground, and then collect some and boil in a small pan on the stove and assess the flavor. We'll all know better in a couple of days.

[GeneralStark]

We are "hopeful", but not "optimistic" that we'll be back in business after this hard freeze. We have collected some amount of sap each day since the last freeze, but stopped boiling the middle of last week due to sour sap off-flavor (due to heavy fermentation in the tubing), although we have left the vacuum on. The trees will undoubtedly still run (at a diminished rate probably) after this freeze and warm-up, but whether or not the syrup will be buddy (or some other off-flavor) is unknown. We plan to let the first hour or two run on the ground, and then collect some and boil in a small pan on the stove and assess the flavor. We'll all know better in a couple of days.

Heavy fermentation in the tubing is right. We had the same "off flavor". Not buddy but not good.

I have observed as I am sure others here have some interesting stuff growing in the laterals and mainlines after last week's summer weather. I can't imagine that this won't lead to some off flavors. This will be an interesting experiment to see how folks do the next couple days.

Perhaps this will be the year to change out drops as the amount of funk growing in the tubing seems more than usual for this time of year.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

We were hoping for the same but one night the syrup had that "carmel" flavor that comes prior to buddy but is still OK and the next it wouldn't go through the press -- never seen it turn that fast before.

[hambone]

Aren't we all so lucky to be in one great big science experiment ? I hope everyone is working on their hypothesis of what the sap is going to do. We will see how close we were to the truth! 17 degrees and frozen up tighter than a ................ Who won the freeze or the buds? Good luck everybody!

[abbott]

17 degrees here too hambone.

I put in ~200 CV adapters this year, so i'm hopeful that those will still run. My releaser/tank setup is less than ideal, so i have to turn off the vacuum and move the releaser to climb in the tank (1300 gallon plastic vertical) and clean out the junk that comes in early. Then i can start collecting good sap. If it warms up enough to run today.

[abbott]

Thanks for your input, Dr. Perkins. How far along are the buds on your trees?

[Brandy Brook Maple Farm]

Hambone, I'd feel a lot luckier if we get a serious reason (sap run) to fire up our evaporator again. After this recent freeze up, it looks like perfect sugaring weather for the next week or so in our neck of the woods. I generally love science experiments, but not when they are a determining factor in my livelihood. :o

[spud]

We are "hopeful", but not "optimistic" that we'll be back in business after this hard freeze. We have collected some amount of sap each day since the last freeze, but stopped boiling the middle of last week due to sour sap off-flavor (due to heavy fermentation in the tubing), although we have left the vacuum on. The trees will undoubtedly still run (at a diminished rate probably) after this freeze and warm-up, but whether or not the syrup will be buddy (or some other off-flavor) is unknown. We plan to let the first hour or two run on the ground, and then collect some and boil in a small pan on the stove and assess the flavor. We'll all know better in a couple of days.

My ten day forecast is cold everyday with highs only to 40 or so. Would it hurt if I shut my pump down until it got warmer? Or should I keep that constant vacuum on them throughout this cold spell. Early in the season I would shut the pump down if there was going to be a cold spell. Thanks.

Spud

[bowtie]

not sure about that but the other issue you encounter with a late run this year is metabolism. i experienced this with my last boil, which i threw out becuase of the bad taste and smell. do not know alot about metabolism but the maple makers guide says it can occur after periods of warm weather during sap season. the buds on "my" trees were not swollen when this happened to me. i believe the swollen bud theory is really just a approximate gauge to the end of maple season. after a little time boiling on the evap the smell of this became quite apparent and though i thought the finished product would be bad i continued to boil only to "waste" another 5 hours. a bunch of fellow traders suggested taking a small amount of sap and boiling on stove to check for this condition. i know i will be doing this in the future if mother nature throws us another year like this again.

[hambone]

The freeze won last night but the buds are getting bigger and bigger by the hour. I'm not feeling so optimistic!

[abbott]

No sap here today. Ran the pump when the lines thawed... temp got up to 36... but no sap. Sure feels cold out there.

[GeneralStark]

No sap here today. Ran the pump when the lines thawed... temp got up to 36... but no sap. Sure feels cold out there.

The pump is back on here and the sap is running lightly. The experiment begins. Sap is funky and going onto the ground for now, but we'll keep the pump on through tomorrow and see what happens...

[Revi]

We pulled our taps last weekend, and have finished for the season. This is perfect weather. I wonder if it's running?

[chevypower]

Well, we stopped boiling last week when we were making C and it was becomming very hard to get it through the filter press. Fired up the vaccum pump for awhile today just to see what was hapenning and the sap was running, not great but comming in at a decent rate and was clearing up nicely before we shut the pump off. We've decided to throw in the towle but if someone needs some sap let us know.

[spud]

The sap is as clear as water right now here at my place. Chevy power you need to keep going. I think the sugar will pick up real soon. Right now I am at 1% but I'm making money just the same. I wont be throwing in the towel for a while ( I don't even know where my towel is ). If you quit now I'm going to start calling you FORDPOWER.:lol::lol:

Spud

[Brandy Brook Maple Farm]

Spud, you're hilarious [FORDPOWER]. We lost our towel, too. But strangely enough, we held out all this time and our sap is clearer and tastier and we are going for a fresh start in the pans either later today or early tomorrow--depending on how much of this fresh sap we collect.

[hambone]

Same in Cornville, Maine!

[abbott]

I started the vacuum, but only a slow trickle of murky sap here so far. I went out and checked drop lines - seems that my CV spouts were running some, but the rest weren't. It only got up to 34 with flurries all day. Tomorrow will be the real test.

Anyone do a test boil yet?

[hambone]

Not yet, I haven't had a decent run. We'll see what today brings.

[abbott]

Sap ran fairly well from the vacuum line today. I test boiled some on the stove and it was definately off. I also boiled some from a bucket (which wouldn't have any leftover nasty stuff like the line) and it had the same smell, so i figure it must have been buddy. One week ago today i declared the season officially over. It is for sure, now.

[hambone]

After a fairly decent run yesterday I did a test boil and it smelled good and tasted good. I'll fire up the evaporator today. Abbott when you say "it was definately off, what do you mean?

[farmall h]

Well I think we are officially done. Cranked the vacuum for 3 hours yesterday afternoon when things finally thawed. Cloudy murcky sap most of the run...started to clear up (meaning less chunks of cheese) but smells sour. Soft maples are definitely in the bud...sugar maples are beginning. By the time I was to gather 600 gallons of sap it would be sour anyway...so it is officially over for us.:mad:

[abbott]

After a fairly decent run yesterday I did a test boil and it smelled good and tasted good. I'll fire up the evaporator today. Abbott when you say "it was definately off, what do you mean?

Hard to describe exactly, but the smell was bad when i brought it to a boil. The sap from the bucket tasted almost like someone had put a couple drops of milk in it. Just a hint of a bad flavor. The sap from my mainline was much worse, definately sour.

[GV2]

After cleaning up everything before the week of high temps here in Southern MA I put out a few buckets on some trees that had zero signs of buds (although all the reds around did have buds.) I collected 15 gallons measuring 2.5% in a week and test boiled some on the stove on Saturday. It smelled like potatoes boiling, but I went for it anyway and boiled off the sap in a steam talbe pan out in a light snowfall. It continued to smell like potatoes all though the boil. I got nearly a quart of medium to light syrup but it does have a slight potato-like (to my senses) after-taste. I would not do it again but seeing how this was my first season it was a small experiment well worth the learning experience!

[DrTimPerkins]

Here at UVM PMRC in Underhill Ctr, VT, the season is officially over. More appropriately, it was over on March 21st, but we just weren't sure whether it would come back. March 21st is the last day we boiled. After that the sap was just too heavily fermented coming out of the tubing system and was starting to produce an off-flavor (a tangy sour-sap off-flavor), so we stopped. At that point, we had produced 0.43 gal syrup/tap, or 4.7 lbs per tap. About 20% of that total was commerical syrup (dark and strong, but no off-flavors, so not substandard). It was our worst year in the past 9 seasons, however it was still better than our best season with our previous tubing system and vacuum. Overall we're at about 75-80% of what we could consider to be an average full-crop.

We left the pumps on since then, but stopped collecting. There were a couple of small runs, and then some really good runs this Saturday and Sunday (and looks like it'll keep running for at least another week). We did collect over the weekend, and the sap was very nice and clear once the lines were flushed out well. We boiled a few test pots of sap on the stove this morning, and unfortunately it was quite buddy. There is some bud expansion here, mainly on red maples and only a little on isolated sugar maples. So apparently it doesn't take much expansion to cause buddy off-flavor. Because we are one of the primary monitoring sites for several different environmental variables, including bud phenology, once we get those data (taken by the VT Dept of Forests, Parks & Recreation), we should be able to tell which stage of bud development is associated with buddy off-flavor.

Research results will be very interesting given the seriously atypical season. This is a great example of why it's good to do research for a couple of seasons. As usual, we had a number of studies looking a spout type/age and dropline age on production. Several other studies as well. We'll be talking about these at various meetings/conferences over the next year.

[Revi]

I'm not feeling so bad about pulling our taps now. It looks like we may have gotten some sap, but it wouldn't have been worth boiling. We called it a season about a week ago and chased all we could with water. It's really over except for a few of the big guys up near the border here in Maine.

[hambone]

Revi, you hit the nail on the head! The season is over here in Cornville, the runs are not that great and the sap is buddy.

[ennismaple]

I'm not feeling so bad about pulling our taps now. It looks like we may have gotten some sap, but it wouldn't have been worth boiling. We called it a season about a week ago and chased all we could with water. It's really over except for a few of the big guys up near the border here in Maine.

I was also worried we'd bailed on the season too early but after reading everyone else's experiences with buddy sap and seeing the buds out on most of our trees it's obvious we got as much out of our season as possible.