Dry trees

[jwmiller]

Hello, small time hobby syruper here in my 2nd season of running my own small operation. I have 23 trees tapped and I am located in NE Minnesota. I got my trees tapped last weekend and have been checking the taps daily. About half of my 23 taps are completely dry. I'm getting pretty decent sap from the trees that are running. All trees are in the same area and are of similar circumference and they look to be of the same health from external appearances. My question is how long do I give the dry trees before I remove the taps and put them in different trees? I have lots of maples I am able to tap from and I am just not sure how long to give these taps before I switch trees. Its really weird because one tree will be giving me 1 gallon per day while an identical tree 10 ft away is completely dry. Thanks!

[DrTimPerkins]

Are the taps that are running on the south and the taps that are dry on the north? Different sides of the tree will run at different times, particularly early in the season when the runs are marginal.

[woodsy]

Hang in there, they should give sap eventually. Seeing similar situation here.

[jwmiller]

Thanks for the replies. All taps are on the South or Southeast side of the trees. This particular group of maples run north/south along a large logging clearcut directly to the east side of the trees. So they actually get more sun from the SE than the S because there's a lot of shade from other trees to the south.

[Corey_d]

I’m in eastern Ontario. The trees in south edge my bush along the roadway are producing well in the sun, while the trees 500’ into the bush to the north have barely produced anything yet, and I’ve ben tapped for almost 2 weeks. The smaller ones have dribbled more than the larger.

[buck3m]

Hello, small time hobby syruper here in my 2nd season of running my own small operation. I have 23 trees tapped and I am located in NE Minnesota. I got my trees tapped last weekend and have been checking the taps daily. About half of my 23 taps are completely dry. I'm getting pretty decent sap from the trees that are running. All trees are in the same area and are of similar circumference and they look to be of the same health from external appearances. My question is how long do I give the dry trees before I remove the taps and put them in different trees? I have lots of maples I am able to tap from and I am just not sure how long to give these taps before I switch trees. Its really weird because one tree will be giving me 1 gallon per day while an identical tree 10 ft away is completely dry. Thanks!

Sometimes it seems there's no reason for when a tree or trees is/are running. Some trees wake up later. If it's a healthy maple tree and you've drilled into white wood the holes that are now dry should start running eventually.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

That’s just the way it is. They will likely run but maybe not. We tapped 20 large and healthy roadside trees years ago that didn’t do much of anything so we gave up on them after 2 years. Strange for sure. Don’t give up yet, it’s early in heavy snow areas.

[jwmiller]

Update, about 6 of my 10 dry trees started flowing yesterday, albeit very little. So that is encouraging. I think I will give the other ones another day or two before I move the taps to nearby trees.

[slammer3364]

I usally give them a week and pull taps,although I had a tree quit so I pulled the tap and moved it to a tree that did not produce last year,now tree is running great go figure