so i guess its all over here

[markct]

last two days have been perfect, cold nights and warm days, but very little sap outa any of my taps, even a few i had redrilled a couple days ago, and i notice the buds are forming on the trees, so i guess its time to pack it up for the year

[lightsteve]

I am done, too. Boiled my last on Thursday, it was dark and murky stuff, and since then the taps haven't run well. it was a good year for me, since i upgraded from pots over a fire to a 1/2 pint evaporator. Got about 6 gallons in all.

[Mike Van]

Me too Mark, I still had 25 taps running fine 3 or 4 days ago - Yesterday & today though, I got 20 gal/sap from them, some of it didn't look good either so I dumped it, saved the good. Taps came out this afternoon. Time to clean up.

[markct]

yea unfourtanatly i had about 40 gallons in my barrel that my tubing goes into that went bad before i could boil it this week, i had a bunch of stuff going on this week so didnt get to boil every evening like usual, and by the end of the week it was cloudy in the barrel, so i dumped it, figureing i would have more to boil these next few day but i see i was wrong! i woulda probably boiled that cloudy stuff and made syrup for cooking or something anyhow if i had known it was my last! still got a little sweet to drain from the pan and boil in the turkeyfrier then the evaporator comes outa the sugarhouse and goes to my neighbor who wants it, and i add 8 ft to the back of my sugarhouse and get the 2 by 8 i bought going for next year!

[markct]

so is this about normal or was it an unusualy short season? seems like it didnt realy flow till late the last week of feb and then it dried up this week, so a little less the 4 weeks. what is it that makes it stop flowing, the temps are still good, i even tried a new hole in a tree i hadnt tapped just to see and nothing hardly, how does the tree know, it it something to do with the buds coming out

[Mike Van]

That new tree you tapped should have run - ? I would think anyway. The ones I took the taps out of yesterday were still going, I think there's a small area in the hole that the OD of the tap seals off. Bacteria from the air can't get to it, pull the tap out, that area has sap running. I was early [for me] this year, Feb 3 or 4 for tapping, just 'cause the weather looked good then. I got almost 2 months. 310 gal/sap in Feb, the rest in Mar.

[220 maple]

Markct

My season ended in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia in the middle of March. However during the season there were days after a hard freeze when the temp. jumped into the lower 40s and the trees did not run. Why I do not know. I have a friend who has a camp about 30 miles from me as the crow flies who had 1000 gallon of sap last Tuesday. He may have tapped late I do not know the details. If I would have messed with my taps, ie went from 19/64 to 7/16. I'm very confident I would still be making syrup, I have had some good freezes and ample moisture. Of coarse it would have been Grade C syrup and most people don't mess with it, I have one barrel of Grade C already which should net me around 800 bucks. I only make it to buy more supplies, jugs, tubing, filter aid ect....

Mark 220 Maple

[SUGARSMITH]

Either it was a great year or the improvements I did in my vacuum had great benefits. I produced 85 gallons this year on fewer taps than I had in the past. Normally I end up with 60 gallons. So what I have now is a lot of clean up to do. All in all I had a great year

[ctjim]

pulled my taps and lines sun and got them all washed and sanitized. some of my trees did great and others very poor this year. maybe due to the lack of frost in the ground? and all the rain? this was only my 2nd season and i had about 30 taps and made about 3.5 gals. of syrup.

[markct]

well interestingly enough my taps on buckets did flow a little today, not great but a little, the new one flowed ok as did some of the ones i redrilled, odd they didnt run 2 days ago who knows! but the surprising thing is the 15 taps i have on tubing seem to be running as well as ever still, and i did no redrilling on any of them. so i collected it today and boiled it, what can i expect? i didnt finish it off yet, will it have a funny taste since it was from trees with buds, my thoughts were it would be good syrup to practice with for candy or something like that, rather than risk good syrup on my first try! and besides i just cant bring myself to let this fun go for the year!