Tapping ?

[PARKER MAPLE]

So i have a brand new set up in the woods this year, and several people have told me with brand new lines, drops and spouts you should recieve the results you ever will. is there any truth to this?

also tapping vergin trees with huge tops they should produce alot ??

so last queston, if everything being new should i be as consernd as much as others about there trees drying up early in the season, will they produce longer??

thanks maple rookie:cool:

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Yes, truth in fact that according to research, you should see the best results this year than you will see over the rest of the life of your tubing. Sounds good on paper, but in reality it comes down to the weather you will get during the season.

If every year was exactly the same, this would be your best year but you may have your best year when the tubing is 10 years old because the weather is the best year in 10 years.

[PARKER MAPLE]

so if i tapped this weekend, do you think that my taps would dry up early? or could i make it to like april. or is that depending on the weather also.

[KenWP]

You guys are scareing me. I had brand new everything last year except bucket spouts and got what I think was great flow for not haveing the slightest idea what I was doing. Some trees that I tapped early with the bucket spouts never did flow and I think they sealed off before they got warm enough.
I will try and to clean everything as well as possible and see what happens. I bought 50 new spouts for expansion and will see what they do compared to last years. Should be intresting to say the least.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I would think if you tap this weekend you could make it to April as long as we don't have a lot of warm days as it is only 6.5 weeks from this weekend to April and Feb will be half over this weekend. Of course, if we have a week or so of very high temps, it is going to "put a hurting on everything"!

One thing to remember with new or used tubing, if you tap too early, the holes will start slowing down even though they may not stop, you are still losing sap at least on gravity. Why chance missing the good runs or have "slower" tapholes when they should be running full bore unless you see a good run happening next week.

PS Seems a little early for VT??

[DrTimPerkins]

so if i tapped this weekend, do you think that my taps would dry up early? or could i make it to like april. or is that depending on the weather also.

With 130 trees you can probably tap all of them in an afternoon. The weather isn't forecast to get warm for at least the foreseeable future. Take a deep breath and WAIT a while longer.

[PARKER MAPLE]

ok glad the dr has spoken, my wife is saying maybe i should go see one with all this maple stuff running through my head. so anyways i guess i will play it safe and wait one more week but thats it im gonna risk it.. I JUST CANT WAIT ANY LONGER..

just kiding, thanks for all the advice and info.

maple rookie

[Revi]

The really big guys have to start tapping in January, but we don't have to start until it gets over 40 degrees for a week or so. We can tap all our trees in a day, and it's a lot more fun to tap when the trees run as soon as you tap them. Let the kids catch the first drop, etc.

I wouldn't worry, it will get warm some time from the last week of February or the first couple of weeks in March. Plenty of time to tap then.

Unless you have 65,000 taps, and then you start right after Christmas.

[PerryW]

I remember tapping at the end of february in 1988, (my first years of serious sugaring). The weather had warmed up to 40 degrees, so I bored my 275 holes and got ready to start sugaring. The sap was sorta running while i was tapping, but at the end of the thaw I had maybe 50 gallons of sap which I brought to the sugarhouse and fired up my 2x6 and boiled for a couple hours (not enough to take off).

Well the next day, we want back into the deep freeze and 2 days later we had a low of -27 deg f. Now my evap was frozen solid, every tank had a few inches of solid ice and my frustration was increasing. It was darn near three weeks of waiting until things warmed up enough to get a real run.

THen april rolled around and the good sugaring weather was finally here but some of my south side taps were already drying up. I reemed out my holes and managed to get some of the late sap, but i learned a valuable lesson.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Here are the past couple of seasons in Bow, NH where I tap March 1st +/-

Like PerryW says, tap early and you'll spend half your time wrestling ice. Rest, because from a description of your setup, when those heavy runs come...

Bruce




Annual Sap Production

2006 2007 2008 2009

1-Mar
2-Mar
3-Mar 120
4-Mar 200 55
5-Mar 115
6-Mar 162 204
7-Mar 210 123
8-Mar 163
9-Mar 23
10-Mar 155 182
11-Mar 230 168 254
12-Mar 43 133 133
13-Mar 113 220
14-Mar 105 154 256
15-Mar 145 231 159
16-Mar 112 224
17-Mar 140 189
18-Mar 220 314
19-Mar 178
20-Mar 165 141 98
21-Mar 120
22-Mar 98 175 64 157
23-Mar 150 324 55
24-Mar 280 215 125
25-Mar 345 45 55 222
26-Mar 235 253 311
27-Mar 205 115
28-Mar 225 90 100
29-Mar 120 80
30-Mar 80
31-Mar 60
1-Apr 42 309
2-Apr 27 250
3-Apr 165
4-Apr 125
9-Apr 110 231
10-Apr 52 31
12-Apr 52
15-Apr 45

[Hop Kiln Road]

Sorry, guess the excel paste doesn't keep all the format. Bruce

[R Kneeland]

Just like most everyone else I'm crawling out of my skin to tap. So to combat this, we just purchaced plane tickets to South Carolina with the intentions on returning March 1. Atleast this will put me in good graces with my wife for whats to come. My grandfather use to say second week in March for us N Vermonters.

[Tyler]

I have about 75 taps and i put 30 of them out today, the weather for the next week is gonna be around 1 or 2 degrees celcius, hoping for an early boil, I figured since i don't have very many taps it won't take much to re-drill then with a slightly larger bit. I used a 7/16 bit and plan on re-drilling with a 15/32. Just wondering if re-drilling the hole later in the season will catch the last big runs.

[KenWP]

Also you could go 13/32 and then go to 7/16. that way you don't get over size holes.

[PARKER MAPLE]

so i didnt plug them all in on sat just put out 50-55 test taps to see when the run gets better, after it gets better i will plug the rest in.
m/r