Little or no sap?

[Jim and Kay Pepper]

Is anyone else experiencing a lack of sap? Our bush is a late bush but it is later than usual this year. We have only boiled twice with 500 taps we have only made 6 gallons of syrup! It is at 4/5% and really nice but so little. We are in the southern tier of New York. We are hoping today will bring a good run it froze over night and is to be in the 40's today so lets hope. Makes wonderful maple cream.

[backyardsugarer]

You are not alone. Gravity taps are not running this year with the warm weather. Vac. is the only reason I have sap. Hang in their, hopefully today flow will pick up for you.

Chris

[Lyle]

I have the same problem, 160 taps on buckets and made less than 10 gals. so far. That's with tapping Mar. 1st. The only difference is my sugar hasn't gone above 1.5%. The sap hasn't run at all in days and when it did it was very little. My snow cover is finally gone and tonight is supposed to freeze so maybe tomorrow!

[stoweski]

80 taps, pulled 30 red maple taps last week, but I managed to produce a little over 5 gallons this season. Won't be hitting the reds next year but will put close to 75 taps in sugars instead.

Collected 12 gallons today and hope for a few more tomorrow since they were still dripping this afternoon.

Calling for cooler/colder weather on Sunday this week. Hold on to your hats, we may be in for some more seasonal weather - and possibly more sap. :)

[wnybassman]

Collected 17 gallons from 32 taps tonight. Add that to the 3 gallons I got yesterday (:rolleyes: ) and the hopefully 5-10 gallons tonight and tomorrow, and I will have a halfway respectable final batch tomorrow night.

I was hoping for much more than I made this year (should be 4 gallons all said and done) but I am ready for it to be done. Time to get the boat out ;)

[maple flats]

Very little flow. I have only gotten 265 gal sap that is awaiting more in the evaporator (currently reduced to about 30 gal concentrate) and about 100-125 more to collect. I'll collect tomorrow mid morning and boil everything down to just the concentrate in the pans and wait again. Hopefully it will flow most of the night til it freezes and then start up good tomorrow. What I have collected so far would only make about 6-6.5 gal. This is on 575 taps, all sugars and about 350 taps are on STEEP ground. I made more than this when I only had 60 taps on a 1/2 pint and that was not even a full season (I started with 37 and gradually added until I had 70 at the end but the average for the season was between 50-60. Added as I found my ability to keep up with the sap) I need a blessing by the sap GODS.

[Babcock Maple]

Same here i'm from northern pa bradford to be exact and my taps are not running hardly at all. maybe producing about a pint to a quart of sap per tap per day. i got around 160 taps on gravity and only getting about 50 to 60 gallons on a good run. something has to give i would think... lets all keep our fingures crossed

[Adirondack]

I'm very small time, I jumped from only 10 bucket taps in the past to 40 on lines this year and I've been disappointed so far. I've only made about 2 1/2 gallons, I'm toying with going for at least a hundred next year and a block arch, unless I can find a good deal on a evaporator.

All this time I was thinking I was doing something wrong, now I find out nobody is getting good runs.

[3rdgen.maple]

I m in the same situation. Got okay sap for about 8 to 10 days nothing special about half gallon per tap. Have not seen sap in days and today the buds on the sugars and reds started to swell. I cannot possible take any orders as I cannot fill the ones I already have. At this point in time any good sap weather is just too late or I should rather say the warm weather was just to early. Can anybody say the wallet took a big fat loss this year.

[johnallin]

Real slow over here in NE Ohio. Just collected 20 gal on 105 taps at 2.3% which is ok but the amount collected is not ok. Had a freeze this am and it's clear tonight - maybe tommorow will be better.

Total collected so far 396 gal, total syrup made 3½ gallons with the pan all sweetened up and maybe holding another gal or so. I too did better in the past on my 1/2 pint.

[unclebuck]

no differentt in southern RI either sap has been at 1.3% to 1.9% pulled my buckets today made less than 1/2 as past years have not had sap for about a week or so and the weather forecast does not show below 35 degrees for the next 7 days

[Mapleridge]

If only the weather had been 8-10 degrees colder this past 2 weeks. We had temps below 30 only once in the last weeks, and very little sap, only from a couple big sugar maples down over the ridge. We have made 6.5 gallons, and the weather looks to be way too warm to get the trees to drip. The season has been too short! But what can you do....

[WebbyMaple]

We're real slow here as well. We made 17 gal last year and dumped some sap, but this year we have kept everything and only made 4.5 gal. There was frost this morning but its 58 now :(

[Saltlick]

Same results, here in the southern tier. I have only had really one good run. Look at it this way, we won't have to cut so much wood for next year. But the weather is great, so I might as well get out and do things I usually do in April and May..

[treefinder]

no good here in north bangor new york either! people on gravity just aren't making any syrup. i have 800 taps on gravityand have only made 55 gallons we usually hit in the 250 range..and i still have alot of snow in the woods, i was hoping the ground just wasn't thawed enough yet . i think we are sappose to get a storm on monday that will be a big help.

[Lyle]

Same here. One bush hasn,t run in over a week-no frost. The other has had 2 frosts and ran a little but cloudy and at 1.3%. I'll wait to see what happens early next week but if there is no improvement (and I don't expect one) then I'll be shutting down. All in all, a very poor year.