Not liking this.

[toquin]

Tapped 1 tree 4 days ago,yesterday when the sun came out it was 1 drop per second. No snow, no frost and extended forecast no big changes.

[Pdiamond]

What are your thoughts about tapping?

[Swingpure]

What are your thoughts about tapping?

The rookie in me sees two weeks of potential tapping and who knows what weeks three and four hold.The rookie in me sees the bird in the hand and says tap, tap, tap. However what I have learned are three things, the weather is unpredictable, your ability to start up quickly and pause can be a big factor in your decision and the clock starts ticking.

What is your ability to pause your operation, because whether you get two weeks or maybe three weeks of this weather, it is only January, so some winter will return? If you are boiling on flat pans, steam pans or pots, your ability to pause is much easier than if you are using a divided pan.

The other concern is that the clock on your taps starts ticking. My guess is you normally tap about 7 weeks from now. If you tap now, there is the potential for your taps to close or slow just as your regular season is starting.

That is the big gamble, will there be a regular sap season this year and if so for how long. Maybe you get sap now and maybe the season starts early and you get the early flows as well. Or the weather corrects itself and there is a regular spring and you miss out on some of the later sap flows.

The weather is always the unknown and even the two week forecast could change and not be conducive to sap flowing.

The bird in the hand.

22704

[toquin]

If it would stay cloudy I would feel better. But as soon as that one tap I put in catches that sun about noon,drip,drip drip. Is this the new normal? Looking back at past issues of The Maple news there sure is alot of articles about early tapping.I know most of those guys are on vacuum and I am gravity, but?:confused:

[ebliese]

I'm not ready yet to tap, although I do agree it feels like sugaring weather. I think it's too early to tap for my operation but I'm all on buckets. I think there's still winter left to come. My father-in-law says usually the weather goes through a two week pattern-gets a little warmer for two weeks, then a little cooler.

[Pdiamond]

AS much as one side of me is saying go, the smarter side is saying wait until mid-February. That's going to be my plan as of right now, even with the temps. being what they are. I can always throw out a test bag to see what kind of flow is happening.

[nhdog]

There has been a lot of discussion about the wisdom of early tapping.
You might want to take a look at this study from a few years back which our Dr. Tim participated in.
http://157.245.92.171/wp-content/uploads/EarlyTappingandTapholeRejuvenation.pdf

[DrTimPerkins]

Looking back at past issues of The Maple news there sure is alot of articles about early tapping.I know most of those guys are on vacuum and I am gravity, but?:confused:

Those folks tapping early also tend to have TENS OF THOUSANDS of taps (or more)...so they NEED to start in January to get all their spouts in by the normal season (late-February to early-March in those areas). I can guarantee you that they would prefer to tap a little later if they could...but given the huge number of taps they need to drill they have to start early.

The other folks tapping now are from WV, NJ, VI, KY, southern Ohio, IL, IA. If you're not in that area (or some other place that is warm)...you probably should be holding off...especially if you're on gravity (buckets, bags, etc.).

They WILL also experience some loss in yield from the early-tapped trees due to the start of taphole drying (compartmentalization), but not in the trees that were tapped later. This is an acceptable loss given the need to start early to finish in time.

As nhdog suggested...read http://157.245.92.171/wp-content/uploads/EarlyTappingandTapholeRejuvenation.pdf

[toquin]

I should have said early tappers are making syrup earlier. Sugarmaker in Vermont 12/23,Sugarmaker in New York 1/15/20. The next 10 days and the last 4 have been good days for sap flow in S.W. Michigan. Sugar is a little low,1.7%

[Swingpure]

Surprise the weather forecast changed for Michigan and despite the mild spell there are a lot fewer flow days as compared to a few days ago.

22716

[DrTimPerkins]

Surprise the weather forecast changed for Michigan and despite the mild spell there are a lot fewer flow days as compared to a few days ago.

Not surprising. https://mapleresearch.org/pub/mn1116weather-2/

[Swingpure]

When I worked for the Railroad, one of my many hats i wore, was I managed the Weather Provider Contracts. Many of the websites that forecast weather had computer generated weather forecasts. We contracted a US Weather Company called WeatherData and they had meteorologists that gave us personalized forecasts. They were far superior to the computer generated forecasts and we made a number of business decisions based on them. I felt they were excellent.

In 2006 they were purchased by Accuweather. They still provided the same service at least until I retired in 2010. I wish I still had a connection with them. I would highly trust them to predict when to tap.

[Mimaplegen6]

I'm on the west side of the state tapping near Grand Rapids. It's been an interesting winter to say the least. We had a decent growing season and good healthy canopies, so I am hopeful if we can generate some good freeze thaw cycles in February we will still sneak out a decent season. I've spent many years growing up in the sugar bush, but this one is unique to my lifetime. The most recent long term forecast I read shows we will still tap around the typical middle to latter half of February. How are you all feeling?

Hopefully many of us are holding hope and we have a great season!

[toquin]

I will be ready to go in 2 weeks. Some forecast models saying cool thru March. I think we are going to have to be ready to tap at any time from now on.

[Pdiamond]

I will continue to monitor the 2 long term forecast on the weather channels and at this point plan accordingly. My hope is to tap the weekend of February 11th. Just have to wait and see.

[ebliese]

Just saw the monthly temperature outlook for February on weather.com. They are predicting a slightly cooler February. Will that happen? We shall see.

[red4476]

Anyone tapping this weekend? I don't have many trees but weather in SE MI looks promising.

[Kbrooks80]

I am going to sanitize my lines this weekend. Will tap late this next week and next weekend.

[TapTapTap]

Not liking this either.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tmnn66krAAhnqHe46

[toquin]

Would love to see what temps are going to be the middle of Feb. Small warm up coming next week.

[toquin]

Put in 300+ yesterday afternoon, got wet form the hammer splashing the sap around as we were setting the spile!

[ebliese]

I was kind of afraid the sap would be running already. I won't be able to tap until the 14th.

[dugit]

put out 112 taps today, running like crazy, got about 60 more to do tomorrow , using a 2x6 leader evaporator, built a new 16 x 20 sugar shack the old 12 x16 shack was in bad shape. i'm 62 years oldand been sugaring my entire life. read maple trader all the time but seldom post. will try to do better. toquin , i would like to see your operation some day. dugit , bloomingdale, mi

[Mimaplegen6]

Put in 80 taps Monday and Tuesday. Collected 90 gallons Wednesday night and boiled overnight.

Added a float ball and valve to my warming pan and didn't have to touch the flow of sap coming in. Mat be the best improvement this season. Season #2 on my 2x4 Sunrise Evaporator.

[toquin]

Ran good last 4 days. Next week on and off. Sugar good 2.3-3 ,no foam, bottom of pans staying clean???

[dugit]

Collected 200 gallon of sap from 112 taps. Unfortunately not quit ready to boil yet. Have about an hour more work in the shack and we,ll be boiling .Don,t usually let sap sit around but i guess 24 hours won,t be the end of the world.Haven,t even started and feel like I,m behind. Tomorrow will be the first boil in our new shack. Guess I,ll finish tapping,60 taps, in a couple days when it,s suppose to cool down and the run should slow. May your pail run full. Dugit

[ebliese]

I put in 86 taps yesterday and 20 today for a total of 106. Some buckets have nothing, some a few inches, and there are two at least which are near full. We'll see how many gallons we've got and the sugar content when we collect. Hoping for collecting this evening but maybe tomorrow.

[Pdiamond]

I have 50 in so far on bags, but have been sick the last few days. Hopefully this weekend I'll get the tubing lines up and tapped in.

[toquin]

Up and down temps. the next 10 days. Hope my holes hold out. 20 deg. today maybe 45 Sunday.

[ebliese]

I've got 34 gallons collected today. It's split between three barrels (we are using a different collection method this year). Sugar content is 2.2%, 3% and 3% respectively. Sap temp was between 12-12.4*F.
----------------------------------------
A note-it was pointed out on a different post that my sap temps are incorrect because if the sap was indeed 12-12.4*F then the sugar content should have been much, much higher. So I most likely have a faulty digital thermometer in some way.

[dugit]

Tried to post this morning but it didn't work for some reason. Finished tapping Sunday morning(2-12-23), 66 taps, for a total of 178 taps. Have made 19 gallons of syrup so far. On Tuesday ( 2-14-23) I was having some problems with the front pan. It would make syrup in the center 2 sections but not have syrup in the outer section where you draw syrup from. At one point i burned the pan a little bit but caught it before a disaster. When I quit boiling that night I saw a burned patch on the bottom of the pan. Wednesday morning I drained the pan and also noticed a layer of sugar sand baked to the bottom of the pan. The sand was in the first section and had the bottom over 3/4 covered . I scraped and sanded the burn and sand and got the pan all cleaned. On Thursday I boiled with no problems. I am curios why the buildup of sugar sand and why it baked itself to the pan. I reverse the flow daily which is suppose to prevent sugar sand buildup. Any suggestions. Happy sugaring. May your buckets run full!!

[toquin]

We ran hard for 1 week, made 90 gal. quit running 2/14, started back up tonight running good. Weather reports are all over the place. Still not liking this

[ScottT]

We put in 23 taps on Saturday, February 18, a combination of hanging buckets, and tubes running to ground buckets. We are in the Thumb. Collected a little over 10 gallons of sap the next morning. Hanging buckets seems to be doing better than the ground buckets. Not sure why. Our sugar bush is 1 1/2 hours away so we will be checking the taps again on Tuesday. Temps are dropping down to mid 30s this week for a high. I wonder how that will slow the flow?

[ebliese]

We gathered 165 gallons recently: 34 on Thursday and 131 yesterday. We processed it all yesterday night. Made for some interesting times in the sugar shack with the first boil and the slightly new setup. "Where's the big ladle?!" "Ah, do we have any defoamer?" We also found out our RO isn't quite processing sap like last year. We stored it in preservative but we'll give it a wash today.

[Pdiamond]

I use canola oil with good success for a defoamer. I put it into a plastic squeeze bottle like you would use for ketchup. That way I can just let it go one drop at a time.

[ebliese]

We do something very similar, safflower oil in a small squeeze bottle. I mistakenly thought we would be ok without it on the first boil. Needless to say, my wife put safflower and canola oil (thought we would give it a try) on the grocery shopping list today. Thankfully no mess in the shack but had some moments of panic!

[ScottT]

This snowstorm is going to slow me down this weekend. We only boil on the weekends. Our sugarbush is in the Thumb and we have to drive there. Should have a good collection up there though. It certainly has been an interesting year.