Tapping the wrong trees

[Ittiz]

So I tapped 18 trees with tubing going into a 55 gallon drum. In three weeks it's only put out like 5 gallons of sap, maybe not even. Clearly I'm doing something wrong in my tree selection. There was another tree (no where near the others) that I pricked with an ice pick to see how it was running around the same time. I noticed it always seems to be gushing when the others just sit around putting out a few drops. So today after I got home from work I decided to put the tree on a 5 gallon bucket by itself. I tapped it right at sunset (two hours ago) and I just went and checked to see if it put some sap in the line to find out the tree has dropped a gallon in only two hours with the sun down! Too bad my gusher tree isn't near any other maples. The big question is where did I go wrong in selecting my other trees? They are on the edge of the woods so they should get sun. For the most part the lines have a pretty good incline, though my land is generally pretty flat. Any suggestions?

[backyard sugaring]

I have found tree let go at certain times in the season. I have some road side trees that nothing is happening.(3foot snow bankings) Don't give up hope. Only a few of our trees are good all year. My feeling is it all adds up. Good luck. Lee

[backyard sugaring]

I have found tree let go at certain times in the season. I have some road side trees that nothing is happening.(3foot snow bankings) Don't give up hope. Only a few of our trees are good all season. My feeling is it all adds up. Good luck. Lee

[Super Sapper]

My yard trees and the ones on the edge of the woods are not doing much of anything but get 30 feet into the woods and several are starting to do pretty good when the temp. is right.

[Russell Lampron]

It has been too cold here for much to happen. The trees that get full sun for most of the day will run while the ones that are slightly shaded or are tapped on the shady side have done nothing measurable. Hang in there, when the weather breaks your slow running trees are going to run just fine. That is if they are sugars. Reds are finicky on gravity and buckets and of the 30 or so that I have put buckets on I have only found 5 that will run like a sugar.

[Ittiz]

It has been too cold here for much to happen. The trees that get full sun for most of the day will run while the ones that are slightly shaded or are tapped on the shady side have done nothing measurable. Hang in there, when the weather breaks your slow running trees are going to run just fine. That is if they are sugars. Reds are finicky on gravity and buckets and of the 30 or so that I have put buckets on I have only found 5 that will run like a sugar.

Lol, they're all reds

[maplestudent]

I'm about 40 miles north of you....I have 34 trees on gravity and 30 on buckets (I tapped them all 2 weeks ago). Most are reds tough I have a few sugars. I have found in the past that some trees flow well the whole season, others only for a portion of the season, and no necessarily the same portion of the season. I boiled about 25 gallons last weekend, everything I had collected to date. I think slightly more of it came from the buckets than the tubing trees. I checked my tubing barrel yesterday......nothing (the line is frozen) while most of the buckets had at least something, some were half full, and one was even overflowing. I tapped 3 more trees yesterday.....all immediately started dripping.

My gut feel is that we just need to be patient and wait for multiple days in a row of warm days and below freezing nights (not meant to mean below 0*F.....in case you're listening Mother Nature).....an then we should be okay