Bloom is on for Maple Syrup

[valleyman]

Not a fan of the New York Times but I found a link to an article published in the Times about a bumper crop this season.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/science/the-bloom-is-on-for-maple-syrup.html?_r=2

[Biz]

Well if it's going to be a good season, it looks like it will happen late, again. March accuweather forecast in my neck of the woods (central MA) shows March highs in the low to mid 30's and lows in upper teens thru at least March 22nd. Not good. Probably similar for most of northern New England. No 40's in sight. The article also says cold Feb's have been historically bad for production. We will soon find out, but it's shaping up to be a lot like last year, if accuweather is to be believed.

Dave

[unc23win]

http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?24309-The-Bloom-Is-On&highlight=bloom

I have been keeping track of accu-weather with a chart for about 3-4 weeks and I have found for my area at least it is not very reliable past 6 days.

[lyford]

I gotta agree. The accuweather long range forecasts are junk. I'm not saying I know what march temps will be like, but i dont think think anyone over at accuweather knows either. Best bet is to see what your local weather liars say as the time gets closer. Maybe they'll have a clue, and maybe not. Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

[Bentley Wood Maple]

I am feeling better about coming season with the snow we have gotten recently, 2+ ft in the woods now. Another 12-15 inches predicted over next 3 days. Still concerned about depth of frost which i believe was a factor in our poor year last spring. Gonna be later than usual i think.

[bees1st]

Looks like NOAA doesn't want to commit one way or another .. http://www.weather.gov/climate/l3mto.php

[adk1]

I agree, I believe that it will be a traditional sugarin season of years past. This is good news for me as my wife decided that we needed to go on a cruise at the time I am usually tapping! Haha.

[Loch Muller]

Yeah, if there is one thing I learned last year it would be to pay no attention to accuweather long range forecasts. Kept telling me it was going to warm up in a couple weeks and when the date came it was still freezing cold. I'd say we're having a typical winter for my area if there is such a thing, 50"+ of snowfall and plenty of cold temps. Hopefully that translates into a good harvest this spring.

[BillinTennessee]

What a difference 500 miles can make. I am in Tennessee. It will be 60 degrees today and I am boiling what I think will be my last little batch. The weather here has been up and down for a month. Cold then warm. It would get down to low 20's at night then into the low 40's during the day for a few days and the sap would flow. Then we would get into the 30's at night and the sap would stop. I am tapping 15 trees and half of them have stopped completely.
So I have been getting breaks between cold snaps.

One question, do the trees have a limited amount of sap? I have a couple smaller trees, 14 inches, that I tapped and they produced about 12 Gallons then just stopped.

Since half the trees seem to be done I don't think I'll be doing any after today. My season seems to be over.