trees start to bud

[maplefarmer]

How many days of highs in the 60s, lows in the mid40s before trees start to bud, or syrup would be buddy. Forecasts say after a week of high temps, we go back to 20s night 40s day, just wondering if there will be any sugar season left after the high temps ?

[maple flats]

I don't know about Indiana, but here in NY I will finally get my first sap flow in several days today. We expect 8-9 days of good flow (according to 2 different forecasts) but unless it changes we will only have 2 days in a row where the overnight low will be above freezing.
As far as when they will bud depends on several factors. What temps have you had in the last 10 days, and a big one is what type of maples are you tapped on. Sugar maples go much longer that Reds and Silvers. For me the Reds and Silvers break bud on average about 2 weeks before my Sugars. When that happens I remove the soft maples and keep going with the sugar maples. Luckily, one of my woods is all sugar maples that are tapped, and around my sugar house I'm mostly sugar maple. What Reds and Silvers I have tapped there get dropped when the buds look like they are ready to pop. I only have 2 laterals with 1 Red each on with Sugars, they get pulled and plugged (the tap not the tap hole), the rest of my soft maples are on laterals with no sugar maples. Those I just cut the lateral and plug it at the main when the buds are ready to pop.

[markcasper]

Last season I pulled all my soft maple shortly after April 1st as buddy/metabolism started to show up and it didn't make any difference in the syrup any way. Continued through April 11th and the flavor got worse and worse even without the softs.

[Ed R]

Syrup might still be good,but I doubt it will run much unless your on some type of vacuum. I am in extreme southern Michigan and I might be done with upcoming heatwave. If you had access to more trees you might be able to tap and do quite well.

[bowtie]

Here western New York the season it really just starting, if you tapped early you have had a couple of runs but for the most part this is the real beginning. With warm weather the sap may go to "metabolism" for a short time but should come back with cooler/ more normal temps. The trees rarely bud more than week early or late on any given year vs the normal average. Mother Nature is rarely fooled. The possibility of an early spring worries me more for apple tree flowers and the possibility off them getting frosted off than maple trees budding early.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

The possibility of an early spring worries me more for apple tree flowers and the possibility off them getting frosted off than maple trees budding early.

Had the exact thought driving around today.

[Calycanthus]

The short answer is, I don't know of a way of predicting the length of the season or when trees would start to bud other than observation in any given year.

The longer answer is, there has to be a way to use degree day metruck to do this, i'm just unaware that anyone has done anything like this.

[maplefarmer]

Thank you guys, I like bowties answer that mother nature rarely gets fooled, that sounds encouraging, or maybe just wishful thinking.

[DrTimPerkins]

Mother Nature is rarely fooled. The possibility of an early spring worries me more for apple tree flowers and the possibility off them getting frosted off than maple trees budding early.

I can only recall two times personally seeing maple buds and emerging leaves get frost injured....I think it was 1984 (but only in a narrow band fairly high up in the hills) and 2012 (when we had 5-6 days of 70-80 degree weather in March followed by a frost. Maple trees have been around a lot longer than we have....they "know" more than we think sometimes....otherwise they'd be gone, and something better adapted would be around.