Fun Challenge

[802maple]

A week back "NEWMOD" from Ohio started a thread "Is this normal" and I was the only one that said it was absolutely normal. Everyone else said that it was because he had great trees, which could be part of the deal, but I am leaning toward that he waited until his normal window in making the highest amount per tap possible and hit it dead on this year. So here is my challenge, especially to you bucket people. If you can find a tree or trees that have not been tapped this year, I don't care if it is 1 tap or 500. Tap these trees and keep track of the sap produced compared to the ones that you tapped earlier this year and report back your findings.
I would say that this would only be feasible in our typically later states or provinces. I would say our banana belt producers should not do this as your season most likely is nearly over.
LETS HAVE FUN WITH THIS AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS

[PerryW]

My 50 bucket trees (big field trees) will sometime give up 3 GPT on a really good run, but my 600 woods taps on gravity pipelines will rarely exceed 1 GPT.

I did hang another 8 buckets yesterday on some good-running, but colder trees. All my other trees have been tapped less that 3 weeks so I think they should have good runs for at least another 2-3 week before they start to dry up.

[happy thoughts]

I don't know. I did that last year when I split my taps about a month apart because of the crazy weather we had. There's no doubt that a new conventional tap will produce more sap than an old one but as I remember newmod got something like 3 gallons per tap on the first day. That wasn't anywhere near my own experience last year. I think something else was going on with newmod like weather- temps and pressures just right for maximum flow as sometimes happens even on older taps and s/he got lucky. If I thought a fresh tap would help this year I'd be out tapping like crazy. The weather has just been a little too cold and a little too dreary to produce much in my neck of the woods. Maybe this week.....

[802maple]

Last year was far from normal and believe it or not this year is much closer to normal. I have been at this business for nearly 50 years and my family has been doing this for many generations. This is the normal date for us to be tapping here in our area with buckets and I have witnessed what was seen in Ohio many, many times. Lets have fun with this and see if it happens, if it doesn't then I am wrong. Pa would be one of the states that i would say it might be borderline if it would have an effect or not. I would say more Northern states would be the better bet. I am talking about buckets and not pipeline. It is easy to say that they won't and not do it.

[Maplewalnut]

I have a feeling you already know what the data will show.....;-)

[Russell Lampron]

I have a feeling you already know what the data will show.....;-)

Search the old threads and you will find that Jerry did this a couple of years ago. He put his buckets out as the buds were popping here and got a 1/2 gal of syrup per tap in a 1 week period IIRC.

[Bucksaw]

I am currently doing this on a pretty small scale on the 15 or so trees I didn't tap in my front yard (very sunny). Tapped 7 of them last Sunday and they have so far given me almost 15 gallons of sap. These are mostly pretty small trees too. The 20 trees I tapped in my back yard haven't been producing much at all in the past 2 weeks, these are mostly woods trees but do get a decent amount of sun. Hope they thaw out a little so I can fire the evap back up...just used a turkey fryer last week.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Jerry is dead on. I have spent this cold spell finding an additional 500 gravity taps and adding them on. In NNY we have always made as much syrup in April as in March. Last year was the first time in over 100 years of records that our family made none in April. Things will change this weekend and we may well be in high gear for the next 3 weeks and be wondering how low Bascom is going to drop his price.

[emo]

The weather here in Ohio has been almost text book for making syrup this year. I live in Central Ohio, tapped 13 trees, 15 taps, in mid-January, made 5.5 gallons of syrup and I pulled my taps on March 10th. The only reason I pulled the taps was due to too many of my trees started budding. Since I pulled the taps, I have watched my bigger producing trees continue to produce as the weather got colder again and started going below freezing at night and back over during the day with the occasional day or two below freezing; the high when I pulled the taps on the 10th was upper 60s. People whose trees are out in the woods are still making syrup and from the weather forecast, could still be collecting sap for at least another week. Last year we hardly had any weather below freezing, was just short of 1.5 gallons of syrup.

[802maple]

I was wondering if anyone was paying attention, Actually Russ on our old farm that we sold 5 years ago we did this every year. The earliest we ever tapped in well over 100 years was March 17th and were told that we were too late nearly every year. In the end, nearly every year we produced as much as a 3rd more syrup then the fellow sugarmakers that tapped earlier. Some can say we must have had good trees. We then took over a neighbors woods and treated it like we did our own and the production at their farm matched our own woods after that. I , by doing this thread, I will be interested in how producers make out with some other trees other then mine.
Search the old threads and you will find that Jerry did this a couple of years ago. He put his buckets out as the buds were popping here and got a 1/2 gal of syrup per tap in a 1 week period IIRC.