Tapping early

[flyzone13]

If a person was to tap there trees say now and the trees are not ready, will the said tapped hole still produce when they do decide to run or will a new hole need to be drilled? I try not to tap until I see trees with sap on them but I'm afraid I may be missing some of the run.

[RC Maple]

If you are asking - if you tap today and the the trees don't run til Sunday will you tap hole still be good the answer is yes. If you are a day or two ahead of the run you will be fine.

[flyzone13]

I am asking because I have seen people that will tap weeks ahead of time. I do not want to miss any of the run but I do not want to be so early that I will end up re-drilling a new hole.

[spud]

I am not sure how big your operation is. If it is small and you can tap everything in a day or two then wait till the real season starts in your area. If you are set up with tubing and vacuum then tapping now is just fine and you may get some early sap. If I was using buckets or sap bags then I would wait till the real season begins.

Spud

[flyzone13]

I have roughly 50 taps all on buckets. Thanks for your help, I guess I can relax a bit for now.

[chuckwagon]

Hope you don't mind me chiming in but you mention wait for the real season,I live in Northeast pa and I just tapped my trees for first time ever,they're calling for Temps below freezing at night above during day at least for the next 5 to 6 days do you think I'm good or should I have waited,I'm using tubing and buckets.also how do I know when the season starts. Thanks

[spud]

Find out when the season usually ends in your area. If I was using buckets I would want to hang them the last 6-8 weeks of the season. PMRC did a study on sap production with tubing and buckets. They tapped trees different times during the spring. You might want to read it because it is very interesting. One of the big concerns that I and others have is, if we hold out on tapping and miss some early runs who's to say the season will not be cut short? If a season ends sooner then we were hoping for then we kick ourselves for not taking advantage of some early runs. I try to tap early because I have 9000 trees and it takes a while. I also hope to be tapped before the deep snow comes every year. If there was no snow to deal with each year then I would tap March 1st in my area. I would give up the early runs to keep the tap holes as fresh as possible for the real season. PMRC shows in studies that this can maximize production or GPT.

Spud

[chuckwagon]

Thanks,9000 trees holy cap that's alot of work,this is all new to me so it's a learning experience,I will check my buckets in a bit to see if sap is running yet,didn't get as warm as I thought it would today it got about 31,,Saturday supposed to be near 50 well see what happens if not I'll wait a couple weeks and tap some different trees,don't laugh but what does p m r c stand for I would like to read it

[Mini_Maple_Men]

Procter maple research center, in under hill Vermont

[Russell Lampron]

Hope you don't mind me chiming in but you mention wait for the real season,I live in Northeast pa and I just tapped my trees for first time ever,they're calling for Temps below freezing at night above during day at least for the next 5 to 6 days do you think I'm good or should I have waited,I'm using tubing and buckets.also how do I know when the season starts. Thanks

You should be fine. You'll know when the real season is here when there are more sap days in the forecast than spells of too cold followed by a day or 2 of sap weather.

[chuckwagon]

Ok thanks,think I'll wait for a while to tap my other trees