Sap Flow

[BackyardMapleSyrup]

Hi All,

This would be my first pot on this forum. I am fairly new with this and its just a hobby for me. I live in Ottawa, Canada and I have only 2 trees. This year has been very good and I have enough syrup made not just for my family of 5 but also have some to give out to friends and family.

I have an observation. My trees are about a 100 years old. I have a sugar maple and a red maple. Both have 2 taps each. Yesterday the temperature during the day was 4 °C or 39.2 °F and the red maple was flowing and I got about 3 liters of SAP. However I got none from the Sugar maple. could it be because the season ran long that the Sugar maple has all its flow exhausted? Just wonder why when one tree is doing so well the other is sleeping :). There have been plenty of days when both tree ran and in one instance I have collected about 10 liters between the two trees in one day.

Any ideas why the sugar maple was dry when they other is doing so well?

Thanks

[Dlee]

Its been the same with some of my trees to not sure why. At the end of the season the trees that weren't doing that great started to run good . But it has come to an end here for me have already started cleaning things getting ready for next yr.

[BackyardMapleSyrup]

Thanks Dlee. I guess its the tress way of saying that's it from me :)

[eagle lake sugar]

This has been a strange season for sure. Here to is April 11th and we've gotten very little sap yet. It's been cold and the snowpack is still 2.5-3 ft. deep. I'm hoping when it finally starts, it runs into May or this season will be a complete bust.

[Msboucha]

Can't complain much here in Northern VT. We've made a good pile of syrup but never had a gusher of a run. We're still seeing temps in the teens at night, and while it gets up to maybe 40 later in the day, the wind is cold and there is still ice in the woods. Seems like it's just letting the trees start to bud, but not let the sap flow, at least not on buckets.

[northwood]

Welcome Backyardmaplesyrup, sounds like you're doing really well with just two trees. I wouldn't give up just yet, I haven't even collected enough sap to sweeten my pans yet:cry:. I'm at least 3 weeks behind compared to previous seasons. Still have 2 feet of snow in the bush and the weather network says more on the way Sunday. Yes I know it's mid April. I just hope that when it does start to flow that we don't jump right to summer.

[DrTimPerkins]

Any ideas why the sugar maple was dry when they other is doing so well?

What compass direction is each tap facing? Southern sides of trees will run sooner than northern taps, but they will also dry out faster.

[BackyardMapleSyrup]

All taps are facing south. It seem like when the Sugar Maple was doing well. The red maple was slow. Now its the other way around. I am thinking this is how they are suppose to be :) If anything the Sugar maple is about 8 feet south than the Red maple :)

[maple flats]

just realize that if all are on the south facing side, since you want to tap away from this year's tap hole as you tap next year you will need to move off the south face and at some point all taps would be on the north face. A far better plan is to tap randomly, but with just 4 taps, maybe one on each compass direction, then if not on vacuum, just move 3" clockwise and 6-8" up or down from the old tap hole as succeeding years get tapped.
Unless you are only going to tap one year, tapping all on the same face is never a good plan. Even then, with 2 taps per tree, they should be on opposite faces of the tree.

[michiganphil]

I've had some years when all the taps flowed at the same time.
I've had some years when 1/2 the taps ran for the whole season, but would only fill the bucket 1/2 way each run. The other 1/2 of the taps took a few weeks to kick in, but when they did they filled buckets each run.
I've had some years when I thought a tap was starting well, but then went dry for a week. Then out of nowhere, it kicked back in and started flowing again.
Just hold on, mother nature has her way of balancing things out. I would leave the taps, and just keep checking on them.