When to tap this year??

[Daveinpa]

Hi folks, curious as to when you all plan to tap trees this year. The El Nino has thown east coast weather for a loop. The weather pattern in NEPa this year already looks like late February's weather - supposed to be on/off in the mid thirties - low 40s next week with freezing a night. Last year was much colder - I tapped at the beginning of Feb. and didn't start getting significant sap until 2-3 weeks later. Should I be tapping now or am I still way too early?

Thanks in advance for your replys/advice.

[GeneralStark]

Hey Daveinpa! There is a whole section of this forum on tapping in specific regions. You would likely get a better response if you join an existing thread in tapping in PA, or start one there.

Just Scroll down to the "Tapping Update 2016" section and look for the Pennsylvania page.

[Daveinpa]

Ok, thanks for the tip. Guess I should check out the whole forum to see what else I'm missing.

[PATheron]

Dave If your in northeastern pa here its kind of normal to be tapped in second week of Feb if your on vac and first of March if your gravity. Where Im at we almost always make most of our sap the third week of March. If you dont have a lot of taps you might want to wait untill the real part of the season. No one taps this early unless they are really big operations and where Im at even those normally dont tap this early. If you just have buckets or something like that tapping early will hurt you I think. I think if you can wait untill just before the real season which is usually March I think you will get way more sap. I tap super early myself but I am kind of setup for it being able to always run the vac pumps when its thawed and stuff like that and even so I problobly get less sap at the end.
Theron