south east virginia

[sweetgum wisperer]

I'm starting my taps tomorrow and see what i get. It's my first year solo and in 20 years, use to do it with my family in quebec.
:rolleyes: :mrgreen:

[maple flats]

Do you have sugar maples, or reds or something else?

[sweetgum wisperer]

I did about 21 tree's on one of my friends property, about 8 red maple. The rest are sweet gum tree's. Problem with sweet gum is not sure if it's producing thru stem pressure like maple or root pressure. still have 70 tree's to do.

[esetter]

Is maple sap flowing there?

[sweetgum wisperer]

i'm going to check tomorrow. We had beautiful weather for it the past 2 days, 20's at night high of high 30's low 40's during the day. should be promising.

[esetter]

I think the internal temp of the trees is still pretty warm. That may slow them this year. Pls let me know if you do , Im not too far from you!

[sweetgum wisperer]

i've got a total of 85 tree's this year done. next week should be interesting, low 20's at night up to 45 during the day. the one day i could of had water in them wind picked up pretty bad and knock my bucket over. using regular 5 gal bucket on uneven terrain.

[sweetgum wisperer]

12416
my middle child helping

[sweetgum wisperer]

the stove I'm working on. 1241912420

[esetter]

Cool project. Im working on a wood fired evaporator myself. Used propane last year , hopefully only to finish with from now on.

[sweetgum wisperer]

the best idea i've ever seen, if you are using pot, is using old rims and weld them together and put the big pan on top. If you can find old metal 18 or 22 it would work real good.

[sweetgum wisperer]

!/4 cup of sap in 3 bucket so far

[flyyer]

It's 9 degrees here, everything is at a stand still, but the trees have sap!
12516

[esetter]

Very cool pic. WE have had a little flow but not much. Next week when it gets sunny and mid 40's hope it flows!

[sweetgum wisperer]

got 2 1/2 gallon of sap out of 4 maple trees, measured at 1.5%. pretty stoked about it

[sweetgum wisperer]

maple trees have been done here, real bad year for making syrup but a quart of syrup still better than nothing.

[Antarctica]

Anything out of the sweet gums? I'm in Southern Maryland trying to plan for next year (see post in Maryland section). I've got about 20 sweet gums I'd like to tap - trying to firgure out when is best to do it given the 'warm' climate we have near the bay...

[sweetgum wisperer]

it looks like if it will flow it will be thru root pressure, so like a birch. I have 85 sweet gum and got nothing from them yet. Next 2 weeks could be promising it should happen between when it buds and when leaf are open.

[Antarctica]

Interested in hearing how they do. Can having the taps in the trees that long (January through March) be a problem?

[sweetgum wisperer]

if it does it would be on the amount of sap i get. forestry agent told me i should have about 60 days on holes for taps at this time of year, after that we loose 50% of the hole.

[sweetgum wisperer]

so i got no sap what so ever from sweet gum. Kinda really bumb about it, really hoping it was going to work because we have such an abundance of them.

[Antarctica]

Interesting - and thanks for the follow-up. Are you going to give them a shot again next year anyway?

[sweetgum wisperer]

if i do it won't be at the scale i did. The challenge I've got is the gum out numbers the maple 50 to 1.

[Antarctica]

Good to know. I've only got about 20-25 gums on my property, so it would be very small scale. Based on your results, I may tap one or two next year just to see if I can get anything at all, before attempting to tap the rest the following year.

[sweetgum wisperer]

if it does it would be thru root pesure so tap late. After speaking to a few biologist, it has too much resin to be able to respond to stem pressure like a birch.

[sweetgum wisperer]

how did it work for you and the sweet gum?


Good to know. I've only got about 20-25 gums on my property, so it would be very small scale. Based on your results, I may tap one or two next year just to see if I can get anything at all, before attempting to tap the rest the following year.