Theories on the season

[Clan Delaney]

What's everyone's take on the reasons behind this crappy, practically over season?

Were there better days earlier on and we just tapped too late?

Did the season start on time and then the weather just dealt us a bad hand?

Did someone forget the sacrifice a goat?

[03weim]

its because I was ready to go at the start of the season!! if I was still running around like a chicken with its head cut off we would be getting great runs as we speak, it feels like ever year I expand the number of buckets we put out we still get the same amount of syrup

[brookledge]

First of all June 09 was cloudy and rainy So no sunlight to produce sugar for the roots this year.
Then I seem to have a better year when we get snow early and keep it like the last 2 yrs. That didn't happen this year
Lastly even though temps for me have been down to 24 at night(beginning of week) the temps shot up to fast and too hot 55-60 isto hot and the sap starts to degrade. If it was only 45 for a high I'm sure I would have made higher grade syrup
Keith

[valleyman]

El Nino is what I heard caused the weather patterns this year.

I think it's really because being my second season and investing many waking and sleeping hours and money thinking and building my big bad block evaporator hoping for a blockbuster season, I jinks all of us. Sorry guys.

[ebourassa]

This year stunk, i could of got a couple good runs early feb, but if i would of tapped then i might of missed late march runs(which never happened), i guess this is the nature of beast. maybe to many of us got gun hoe and put too much steam in the atomsphere which contribited to global warming, i guess if that was true we would be pretty much screwing ourselfs, lol. i guess theres always next year.

[maple flats]

This season stinks so far. With 650 taps out I have only collected 265 gal of sap total. That is less than a third of one GOOD day's worth for my gravity set up. I had no sap at all today, I collected 100 gal from what ran yesterday. It was too cold for too long and once it warmed I have not had even 1 below freezing night. I look at the 10 day from one source and see 2 nights that might re start it a little, the 15 day from another source shows those 2 and an additional 5 at the end. I am entirely on sugars and sure hope they hold. That 11-15 day looked good, temps in the low 20's overnight or colder with all but one day going to at least the high 30's or better. If this doesn't hold I will be at about 7 gal syrup on 650 taps. I made more back when I had 42 taps on a Half Pint my first season as I got back into maple.

[stoweski]

No theories, just statistics.
I've been keeping data for the season since I put my taps in on Feb. 20th, the day before the maple moon.

I've had five nights below freezing since Feb 20th! Two were back on the 21st and 22nd, two were this past weekend, the 6th and 7th, and one was this past Wednesday, the 10th.

I'm still holding out for more. March can be an interesting month! The reds are budding. Here's hoping that the sugars hold out a little longer.

[Stickey]

ooops, ahh sorry guys, too many boiling sodas..... I could have sworn that was a goat. My bad!!! What ever, it tasted like chicken.... Relax, the party aint necessarily over yet, Old man winter could blow his load at any minute.

[heus]

I remember a blizzard in NE Ohio in early April about 5 or so years ago

[40to1]

I think I'm in the minority: I had a pretty good year.

My operation is itty bitty. I had 23 taps but only 15 generated anything. But what the 15 generated really was amazing. It was continually surpassing may storage ability.
The sugar levels recorded between 2 to 4%

Of course, I had made a ritual sacrifice of hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill back in January.

[3rdgen.maple]

I sacraficed a maple tree this summer and thinking I made a huge error and upset all the other ones. So tomarrow I am gonna run around the woods yelling "say hello to my little friend" and intimidate the trees to give me sap or death will become them.
On a serious note I feel our summer did us no justice as far as sugar content. I thought for sure however with all the rain and the early snow we had here the maples would be drunk with sap. I am sure there is the potential for good sap runs but dang we need colder nights for it to happen. Other odd thing about this winter is the normal winter cfm flow of the salmon river in my bark yard was way below normal. It has been around 250 instead of the usual 500 to 750. With the warm spell right now it should be in the 1000 range and it is 750. So if anybody asked me before I tapped what the expected season was going to be I would of said lots of sap low on sugar. Instead I got lows on both. If a week of warm weather does not bring the buds out it has the potential to get better but when we are looking at mid 50's for a week straight it is not good.

[maple flats]

My sugar has been at 2.25-3%, about typical. My problem is just the lack of overnight freezes. The other problem was the big snowstorm that took down limbs 2 weeks ago and it took me way too long to get it cleaned up and repairs made. I lost several sections of main, where BIG limbs fell and broke the side ties. In a couple of places the limb hit and crushed the main between a rock and a hard place. The repairs were not finished until early this week. During that time I was losing sap in several spots and it took time to find and repair. Several laterals were knocked down by limbs, buried under 30" snow and then the snow crusted over. I had to cut many lines and try to pull them free, many I had to just re string sections. Spring cleanup in the woods will still be long.

[Clan Delaney]

I'm looking at weather data from the Amherst College Weather Station, which is just down the road. I'm at a higher elevation, but their data is more local than what I can get from Weather.com.

Anyway, here it is for Feb: http://www3.amherst.edu/~weather/new/ACWeather.html

I tapped on the 22nd. I probably should have tapped on the 8th or 9th. I may do that next year and rely on clean, new drops and taps to extend the season a bit.

I may even invest in an electronic weather station for here at the house, to get a better idea of how long and deep the freezes get each night.

[DaveB]

I tapped on the 22nd. I probably should have tapped on the 8th or 9th. I may do that next year and rely on clean, new drops and taps to extend the season a bit.

I may even invest in an electronic weather station for here at the house, to get a better idea of how long and deep the freezes get each night.

Based on the temps at Amherst I don't think that you would have fared better with the 8th. Temps in the 30s aren't good enough. It takes things time to thaw out and get good runs. I've made the mistake in in the past of tapping too early and saying "hey, it's 40º, why isn't the sap flowing?".

Looking at the temps for Amherst (and my own records), there were some fine patches in January. Someone mentioned that the big boys up north start tapping after January 1st because they have so may taps. For the life of me I don't understand why those taps don't dry out. I may try that next year...I'll tap half of my bushes in January and get what I can get till mid-February.

As for this year, by the time the temps were right in the day, night time temps were not right. I think that's the big problem this year. Temps not going far enough below freezing for long enough. I also think a seasons got to have a day or two that are below freezing to kind of reset everything for a longer season.

Temps look good starting the end of this week for a good long while. It's a pattern change that we need but the real question is will the trees hold out till then?

Oh, yeah...get a max/min thermometer. Start keeping a weather log too. I think anyone who depends on mother nature should!

Dave

[gator330]

My thought is that any of you guys who did make some syrup, hang on to it for the money. If our friends to the north have as bad a season that we have. It is going to be worth some money!!!!!

[Frank Ivy]

I had a disappointing year.

3 Years ago I used milk jugs and summac stems and was taking in .5 to 1.5 gallons a day for quite a few days. Seemed too easy.

This year I put about 8 Sugars on a 5/15 line and put out 16 buckets.

Total syrup made ended up being just about 2 gallons. I had planned on the 1 qt per tap rule of thumb, so about 6 gallons.

2 gallons? That's not enough to even get through the year for us!

Reds all produced about 2.5 average Brix. Sugars in the open were 3 ish, but sugars in the woods were 2 ish. So about 2.5 average overall.

My theories on this . . .


1. We had about 2-3 feet of snow pack by mid February.
2. February was very cold. Didn't start to break freezing until mid month. We tapped just past mid month. Tended to be very cold at night and just over freezing in the day.
3. Had 4-5 days of cold nights and days in the high 30s, but then nothing but over freezing weather.
4. Looks like we're done.
5. Couple taps gave zip. Nada.

My working theory is this . . .

1. Snow pack prevents temperature variations from affecting roots, thereby reducing temperature differentials that cause sap flow. Snow has an R-value of 1 per inch. 2 Feet of snow is R-24. Ground under snow on my property did not freeze this winter.

2. Feb temps didn't get warm enough during day to counteract very cold nights.

3. March - a couple good days, but no gallon+ per tap days. Maybe due to insufficient cold at night.

4. Very sudden shift from Very cold nights/just over freezing to barely freezing nights to 15-20 over freezing hurt sap flow - no sweet spot of 20-25 at night and 40-45 in the day.

I'm bummed, but prepping for next year.

And to the guys in this thread who are serious boilers - man you do have my sympathy. Really tough numbers across the board.

Here's to a better 2011.