Tapping in South Central PA

[emericksmaple]

My neighbor stated tapping today. He tapped bout 700 on tubing, they ran some, but I still think that the trees are froze. He tapped a bucket on Monday and it only has about a 1/2 gallon in it. We are waiting on warmer weather toward the end of the week. May start on Saturday or Monday depending on the weather. Just a little update for anybody out there that was wondering.

[mapleman3]

watching like a hawk... I need 2 more weeks, still too much to do!!! 8O

[softmaple]

tapped a few last night in Agawam MA and it was flowing, checked it this morning about an inch in the bucket. many more buckets to put out as i get more time.

[ontario guy]

we are plus 3 c on saturday with minus 3c at night... it is getting close... it is supposed to be 7c above on wednesday!!

i am thinking of taping on Feb 20th.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Sure threw me a curve ball down here. It is supposed to be 42 to 48 with quite a bit of sun 5 days in a row from Sat until Wed, then cold after that. I guess I will hold out until Feb 19th. It always seems the weather forecasters are too optomistic this time of year. I tapped around the 10th of Feb last year and it was at least a week too early even though the forecasters were calling for good sap weather, it never materialized. I may pay for it in the long run, but guess I will wait and see.

Hate to miss a good run, but if it is cold for the next 10 days after that, it will probably hurt more than it will help. :?

[syrupmaker]

Brandon,Ontario guy.....i agree with you on tapping around the 19th-20th.So far it looks like it will be thenfor us,but like Brandon said,it can change by then again. We usually shoot for the 21st which is my brothers birthday.Not always exactly perfect weather then either,we have waited until the following week many a year(4) :wink:

Rick

[Slatebelt*Pa*Tapper]

Hi emericksmaple,
Where are you all located in S.C. PA.??

I just looked at the long range forcast and they are saying mid 4o's and by Weds 50"s highs here? But then drop down to the hi 30's. The forcast runs out then.

Thanks
Charlie

[emericksmaple]

Slatbelt, I'm located in southern Somerset County about 5 miles from the Maryland line. About 8 miles from a little town named Hyndman. Out in the middle of nowhere.

[Slatebelt*Pa*Tapper]

emericksmaple,
are down below state collage or altoona some where :?:

Charlie

[emericksmaple]

yes, I'm about an hour and a half from altoona. I'd say to the south, southwest of itIf you look at my homepage there is a map and it will give you a better idea. the address is www.emericksmaple.com

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Hawkeye- Don't let too many of these good days pass you by with those red maple that bud 2 weeks earlier then sugar maple. Put those taps in today and make some syrup while the syrupin' is good mapleman3.

[mapleman3]

Kevin.. I'm no where near ready.. no insulation in the arch, no vacuum... laterals need to be finished .. tank on truck with dump station... YIKES!!!!

[pegjam]

Kevin:

Are you tapping yet? There're calling for 49-50 degrees here this weekend thru Mon anyway. We're not even close to being ready yet. Gonna run lines this weekend, and get evap ready to go, so much to do, so little time!!!! :oops: :oops: :oops: So who's tapped, and who isn't? Fill us in on more of the details!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

pegjam
"Hope it helps, can't hurt"

[DougM]

We are about 70% tapped, planning to finish this weekend and probably put in 25 or so additional over our 100 of the last couple years. New rig, more taps...what a surprise.

30 degrees & sunny now (10:00 AM) supposed to be hitting 43 today, 30 tonight, 49 tomorrow. Yahoo!

[JohnM]

My place is a little east of DougM. I put my 55 taps in early this week.

Gathered about 50 gallons today.

Ground still a little frozen but turning to mush quick

Forecast is warm and sunny tommorrow and Sunday 8)

Brandon's WV pan working like a charm :!: :D

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

John,

Let me know how it does?? You should be able to make several gallons over the next few days! :D

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Pegjam- My tapping consisted of about an hour of 30-40 holes 3/64" in Dia. I was doing a little testing in a section of woods i am thinning( about 2000+ trees 3-4" in dia. that need to be cut down for some thinning). I Found a couple of red maples with 2.5 + 2.6% sugar and found some sugar maples with 1.4+1.5% sugar-Very interesting to say the least.
I was in such a hurry this afternoon that i headed off to the sugarbush and forgot some flagging tape and tree paint so i could mark things up so i know what is what? Although i'm just about ready to pick out a bunch of crop trees and turn the area into a hurricane disaster area and save time on testing most of the trees on this time around and in 5-7 yrs. take time and then test em' all in that area for sugar% then?
I Plan on doing some more testing tomorrow and sunday. and plan on starting to tap officially on the 12th. on my week off. Like anything else lot's of Misc. things to do to get ready for the flow.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

I've noticed that the 2 low ball sugar maple were the excepition as most of the sugar maples in there were running 2.5-2.7% and did find one that was 3.2% and those 2 red maple were the high balls as most were running around 2.0-2.2%. Everything will peter out after a while. If i had a large quanity of red maple taps i would have tapped them before this warm spell and done the sugar maples in a couple of weeks. But that is not the case right now-In years to come when i add about 1400 red maple taps that will be the program=Get the early runs and pull the taps when they bud and still run the sugar maples to the end.
I had my son's basketball game to go to today so maybe i'll get over to the sugarbush by 230Pm. and get some more testing done-It was kinda funny the trees that tested the lowest sugar% were running the hardest yesterday-Even had a couple of reds that didnot run at all-I may just test the rest of the sugar maples in there and if the sugar % is lower then some of the reds i will say the heck with them and pick the better trees and start cutting?

[pegjam]

Kevin:

We decieded to get it started, and put in about 100 taps. They are running like crazey. :lol: :lol: :lol: Still have along way to go, but getting it done. In years past when I have tapped this early, I really didn't have to many holes dry out, and if they did, I reamed them out a little bit, and they'd come right back. Did find some squirel holes in the mainline though. :evil: Never had that problem before, so it was lucky the wife noticed them. (she's in the woods helping out every spring, god bless her!) We don't have much in the way of snow left, about 4-6 inches, and that won't last this warm spell. One other thing you might want to think about doing, and I have thought this out quite abit and it might work, is tap your 5/16 taps early, and then come back through it a few weeks and put in 7/16 in the same holes. (after you drill them out of course). That would allow you to tap early, and stay late into the season. I came up with this idea when one of the local's wanted to try making fall syrup, but not drill too many holes in his trees to handle both seasons. Of course you lose the advantage of smaller holes healing quicker. But 1/2 the trees we tapped last year with 7/16 holes were almost completely closed, having just a pinhole left to heal, and these holes were all on the side which the sun hit. :?: :?: Care to guess why? Because I don't know. More later.

pegjam
"Hope it helps, can't hurt."

[mapleman3]

Kevin, when you are testing the trees, how do you make the hole to get the sap out.. I too want to check a few of my reds for ha ha's .. now that I have a refractometer of course :D :wink: I just wasn't sure how to go about it, thought maybe just a real small bit in my drill, but the darn things are so easy to break carrying them around(the bit) I suppose a small finish nail woud do just fine though.. just bang it in and pull it out? also do you carry a small bottle of distilled water top clean the lens every time? I was thinking a spray bottle and clean dry rag.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Look under sugarbush management-I'll post a summary there.