marking holes

[eagle lake sugar]

I work full time,so enlisted a friend last spring to help me tap. After the season, while pulling taps I found many that were directly underneath or right next to a previous hole. I'm wondering if anyone has found a method of marking tap holes as you pull taps so this doesn't happen. Is there a paint or something I could use?

[ennismaple]

Nothing I am aware of. I would be concerned the paint in the taphole might cause additional damage to the tree. We are very picky about who we allow to tap so we get proper spacing and round holes in sound sapwood.

[maple flats]

That is a big risk if you use help to tap. All I can say, is take lots more time training them. Make sure they know how to identify previous tap holes.

[madmapler]

We are very picky about who we allow to tap so we get proper spacing and round holes in sound sapwood.

I wish I had that luxury. I am pretty much alone during the week with help from my brother on the weekends. At 5000 taps on a rugged hillside I can't be very picky at all. I'm limited to young guys who aren't afraid of work. That's not that easy to come by around here anymore . I spend a good amount of time showing them the ropes. I watch them do it a while and then you have to let them go. I almost expect to come back and shake my head in dis belief. The worst one was 2 years ago. On trees with more than one tap, he actually drilled the holes 2" apart and tapped them and that's not all, I had him putting on drops before the season which he did well. Only problem was when he tapped, he cut off the excess drop. Some new 30" drops were only 6" long when he was done. I asked him how he could possibly have done it like that after I specifically showed him what to do. His answer, "I dunno....Sorry":mad:

[Bruce L]

I'd have to agree with Marty,for us it's just my wife and I that tap,takes us a lot longer than it should,but the damage to the trees will last a long time from mistapping . Last time we had help, our " helper " got so far behind me tapping that he was missing holes,main reason being that he was driving the check valve adapters all the way in until the " wings " were against the tree,nearly impossible to remove them after the season. Sounds like you need to find help that will be more responsible around your maples

[JoeJ]

I decided in 2004 to mark the old tap holes with yellow paint. My wife hated the idea (and still does ), but I won that battle. A couple years later, I was reading an article by a PHD researcher at Cornell who came up with the same idea. (I pointed out the article to my wife and said that I must be pretty smart too!!). In the fall I mark the newest hole. About 4 or 5 years ago, I thought, why not mark next years drill spot. This would make deciding where to tap when it is 15* out a lot quicker. So I use yellow paint on the newest hole and orange paint on the next season's spot. Having the yellow paint hole markings ensure that I am using all 4 sides of the tree to tap. Kind of hard to screw that up. No accidental drilling right above or right next to an old tap hole. When I had 1,000 taps, it took about a day to go through the woods and complete the marking as well as a pre-season check up for repairs. With 3,200 taps now, it takes about 2 1/2 days. But I find nothing wrong with spending a few days in my woods with some nice mid-October weather.
Someone else state that he used a red lumber crayon to mark the next drill spot. He did the pre-marking for the same reason. It is a lot easier to check all around the tree to find the best spot in nice weather
than checking during taping season.

Joe

[lpakiz]

I use aerosol tree-marking paint when I pull taps. I carry it in a holder right on my tap-pulling belt.
The following season, I try to always move to the right. Usually I can see several years worth of holes while I'm walking up to the tree.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

I know one guy who used a red lumber crayon to mark holes when pulling taps. Sean's post is a reality for many....never know what you're going to get with hired help. And for those who work full time with thousands of taps, you have no choice. Its amazing what people come up with when left unsupervised!

[eagle lake sugar]

I kind of like the crayon idea. I'm at around 3000 taps and in tapping season, there's 2 or 3 ft. of snow, so 250-300 a day is about all I can do. I'd really like to do them all myself but it takes about 12 days, so that's 6 weekends if I can work both days. It's either start tapping the second week of January to prepare for early March, or get some help.

[WestfordSugarworks]

Joe seems like this method has worked well and could be a good option for other people. Only thing is organic inspectors won't like it if you are currently or want to become organic certified.

I agree with Mapleflats in that one should take a lot of time to train their help. It takes a long time to recognize what an old tap hole looks like, especially one that is several years old and the two halves of the circle are quite separated. It also takes some time to understand what healthy taphole shavings look like vs. shavings from a bad area of a tree. We are hiring a friend of mine to help tap starting the first week of January and Im gonna go out with him for a couple of hours before we get going, showing what old tapholes look like and explaining what a taphole does to the tree in terms of damage to that area. I probably will also show him pictures of what a tree looks like without bark after years of tapping so he can understand the importance of taphole spacing. When I first started tapping for other people nobody explained to me the importance of these things. I think once you have educated your help they will take pride in doing a good job.

It probably is in a producer's economic interests to pay their help for a couple hours of training, especially if they will be tapping thousands of your trees.

[JoeJ]

I was told by an organic certification inspector that use of standard paint on your trees eliminates you from organic certification. However, he did say that the use of "organic paint was OK" (Whatever organic paint is)

[Gandolf]

I still work full time so some times I find myself taping in near dark or dark conditions. Needless to say, sometimes finding last years tap hole can take some time. I have started using push pins to mark my latest tap hole when taking down my equipment. I have been doing this for 2 years now and it works fairly well.

[maple flats]

While it may seem like a waste of time, I train each tapper 1 on 1 for about a half hour, then I train the next. After that I check on the first tapper and make any necessary corrections before I move on to the next tapper. After training the third one, I check on #2. I've never had more than 3 helpers tapping. Then I do some tapping myself before checking on all the tappers. If I have to tell them more that 2X on any single point, I pay them and send them home. I think that only happened once.
One thing I state is that they should spend more time identifying the old holes than making the new one. I also insist they never wobble the drill when drilling , that only gets 2 warnings too.

[Daveg]

Tell/show your friend to go by the "best practices guideline" of: no new tap hole within 6" horizontally or 20" vertically of any old holes. There's a photo on the UVM site that has a photo of a healthy maple that was band-sawed vertically showing how the wood near the taphole is permanently damaged. A picture is worth a thousand words, though we all have different learning styles. Some learn just fine through words, others through demonstration and others still, through hands-on tactile experience.
www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/vandenberg10full.pdf