How the season?

[wattsup]

Just curious how other areas area doing. Here in SE VT the season has been terrible, great run the end of Feb then dribble. Most are at 1/2 crop those with vacuum are doing a little better. Temps are in the high 50s last night only 40 it is not looking good.

[wildacres]

Ditto in southern NH - really, really bad. I think, in fact, I am done, as
the temps are sky-high for the next ten days. I think anyone without the benefit of a little elevation didn't see the sort of overnight lows we'd all hope for.

THe good news is my wood supply for next year is ready now - and will be tinder dry! :lol:

Paul L.

[Dill]

I've been getting great overnight lows tuesday night was 24, wensday 26. But its 60 by 11. And it just isn't running on gravity at that point. I'm still getting clear sap in the tubing but so little its scary.

[adk1]

God aweful here in the S adks of NYS:cry:

[MainelyMaple]

horrible season for us in auburn maine. looks like we may pull the taps this weekend, only made about 10 gallons from 235 taps

[Brian Ledoux]

terrible here. Last year I had 12 taps or so and a turkey fryer and made just about 2 gallons. This year I bought an evaporator and had close to 100 taps by mid season. (started with 65) I still only made just under 2.5 gallons. And I lost a half gallon to an off flavor either due to bad sap or way I was boiling. Not a good year here. Not giving up yet, though.

[wattsup]

I wonder what affect this is having on price,

[vtjeeper]

terrible here. Last year I had 12 taps or so and a turkey fryer and made just about 2 gallons. This year I bought an evaporator and had close to 100 taps by mid season. (started with 65) I still only made just under 2.5 gallons. And I lost a half gallon to an off flavor either due to bad sap or way I was boiling. Not a good year here. Not giving up yet, though.

my year is going about like this, minus the off flavor, so far. I put out 100 taps and have collected about 230 gallons. tomorrow I will collect and boil the little bit we got from the last couple days. I don't expect it to be more than another 40 gallons. I've actually only drawn off a half gallon finished so far. seemed darker than I expected also. I'm dissapointed with this season and looking at vacuum to see if I could do that next year

[7810hunting]

here in northcentral pa. my season is terrible. warm nights with a few below freezing in between. gravity line not good. buckets not much better. half to two thirds less than last year

[PerryW]

I have 86 gallons, mostly fancy, but was hoping for 120 gallons. I really only got started 2 weeks ago making syrup, so I'll probably hang on until next week, as it's supposed to freeze tuesday. Maybe I can at least make some commercial then.

Guess those CV spouts won't give much advantage this year, unless you want to make a bunch of bud run.

[Mac_Muz]

I tapped early for me in the 3rd week of Feb. 35 taps little guy.
I made 1 quart in the first run, with around 36 gallons of sap.

Then it stopped a while and came back, and I boiled around 50 gallons of sap for 1 gallon 1 pint.

There is still 1/3 barrel I just couldn't deal with, wishing my wood was hotter, but it wasn't, so I stopped adding sap.

Some buckets are filling and clear, others are yellow, and I don't know what to do with them. I freshed a drill hole today as i drill undersize with the hope I could drill again to 7/16". never did this before, but it didn't change anything.

What should i do with yellow sap?

The plan is to boil off that 1/3 barrel separate for the new sap. That I hopw will be a darker grade B, which this last boil was.

Then with the new sap boil 5 gallons of that to syrup and see what it is.

I am hoping the cold said to be coming does. If not my season will be terrible with 1 gallon, 1 quart, and 1 pint.

I had no off tasting syrup...

[stoweski]

I wonder what affect this is having on price,


I've been wondering the same thing... except it sounds like a few in the north continue to have decent weather.
Will be ready and waiting for next season. Yesterday I boiled til' I got the "damp sock" smell then decided enough is enough. Taps are going to come out this evening.

[SPILEDRIVER]

im blessed with living in a cold valley.i put in 18 taps on the 7th of march and got 120 gallons of sap in 4 days.it shut down on the 11th but came back on the 16th.i collected 32 gallons the last 2 days and i put in 15 more taps today and it was running real good.most of mine are on 7/16 spiles on drop tubes into 5 gallon bucketts.i did hang 9 on sap pails today gonna boil tommorrow.

[PerryW]

I dump the sap if it's real yellow. I'm guessing it would turn the syrup into grade B.

[michiganfarmer]

Terrible season here too. just no freezing nights.

[steve J]

Unless the cold snap of early next week triggers some tree energy then I will be done too as it is not running at all. What really irkes me is the temps in the valley have been getting into mid 20s at night ie Wed Thrusday morning waterbury radio station was reporting 28 degrees I am 5 miles away and at higher elavation and I am 41 night before was a similar spread.

[Fred Henderson]

Hang tight guys, we need rain and its on the way. Sap will be running.

[michiganfarmer]

Im worried the buds are gonna open before the cold temps hit again

[PerryW]

Im worried the buds are gonna open before the cold temps hit again

I think we're all worried. It's years like this that I'm glad I never expanded to the big time. I had hoped to make $1500-$2000 more retail syrup, but if I get cleaned up a month early, I can get a jump on summer projects.

But I'll stay plugged in for now. I think I might have 100+ gallons that ran today and yesterday to boil and maybe hit 90 gallons.

[sawyer40]

I tapped Feb 14 things were still froze since then until now I collected sap 9 times. March 7 was my last run. I have 400+ trees tapped and hoped to get 80-100 gal of syrup I'm at 22 gal and theres no sighns of getting any kind of run in the next week. the red maples popped buds a week ago. I'm glad this is just a hobby for me I'd be real stressed out if it wern't. I got almost enough to break even for fuel,bottles,fittings and line. What a business.

[Maplehobbyist]

...It's years like this that I'm glad I never expanded to the big time.

Wow, 800 taps and 3' x 10' evaporator isn't considered big time?

Yesterday, the sap in the jugs was cloudy so I dumped it. This morning I went out and the jugs were still empty and the taps were completely dry. Even the ants had deserted. Morning temp here was about 32, but even on those few nights earlier in the season when it was below freezing there was still moisture in the taps. The trees don't look like they've budded. Is this the end?

[maple flats]

Very poor but there is still time. I still get what almost amounts to a neussance amount most days but I boil because that is all I get. I agree with Fred Henderson, rain should help.
Looking forward at 4 different sources for long range weather one suggests 8 good days thru 3/31, the others give only up to half that for thier 10 and 7 day forcasts. I hope the 15 day is closest. They forcast temps generally about 2-4 degrees colder than the others for lows in this time period and that will make a big difference.
I'm on gravity with the CV adapters and I see no sign of drying holes yet, just poor flows. My taps are all in sugars this year and the buds are still tight here, even trees in warmer sections. I still have time to reclaim some of this poor year.
I have dicided this is my last year without vacuum and I'll need to sell sap when I get too much to handle without an RO, but the RO will have to come the following year along with the needed addition and heated room for the RO. I will put vacuum in my 400 tap woods and then with 2 sap ladders I can make that about 550 taps, my 180 tap woods will need to wait until I find a small used vac that will suffice. There I could add lots of reds but very few more sugars. In that woods I only tapped the sugars this year so it is about 175 taps. My big woods has no reds tapped but I could add about another 75-100 more there after I get an RO. Whenever I tap reds (or an occasional silver) they go ona seperate latteral so when buds break I just pull the line from the mainline and let it dump until I can pull the taps.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Worst year I have seen in 20 years of making syrup in southern WV. I would guess we will be at about 40 to 45 percent of a normal crop. We got about 7 days of total sap flow and only 1 day of good sap flow. Season start about 3 to 4 weeks later than normal, so it was destined to be bad from the start.

[HHM-07]

Hi vtjeeper

Where in Fletcher are you? I am in East Fairfield on Boot Hill Rd, going toward Metcalf Pond. My season has not been great but better than some in the area. i have 200 taps and have made 26 gals. still running but i am not boiling any more till the quality of the sap gets better , maybe after this cold spell.

Dick

[sugarmountain]

Here in western mid VT. its been crummy also, started off ok then....... ya know. we have made a third of a crop as have most around us in lincoln/starksboro higher elevations.

[JohnsSugarShack]

Have to agree with you Brandon, this has also been my worst season in 13 years. Good thing I just do it for fun and not the money. Only had a couple good days of running then it just dried up. I pulled every thing down today and finish up another 6 qts of medium amber. Tomorrow I'll clean up whats left in the evaporator figure I'll end up with another 2 gallons should be medium grade. So for the season I'll end up with 9 1/2 gallons of fancy and 3 1/2 gallons of medium. If my trees had run like they have in the past I would have had twice as much syrup but that's mother nature. Over all had a good season with the new evaporator just wish mother nature and the trees gave more sap. Just have to start getting ready for next year and tap more trees.

[Bucket Head]

Yes, its been a horrible season. I can not believe its been this bad. Its just a shame. Everybody plans, prepares, purchases equipment, etc., and looks forward to sugaring season all year and this is what we get. I realize Mother nature does what she wants and we have to live with it, but this season has been tough to take. I don't know what else to say....

Steve

[3rdgen.maple]

I am gonna think on the positive side today. There are a couple good things that have come out of this season. 1 plenty of time to catch some whopper steelhead. 2 There has been plenty of time to catch some not so whopper steelhead. Other than that mother nature sure kicked my butt as hard as she could. I think my butt will still be hurting till next season. Time for vac. but not sure if that would of got me to where I wanted to be at. But it would have made it a little better although not sure if I would have recouped the money spent on it. All in all the worst season I have ever seen. Everyday the extended forcast changes from good to bad to good. But hey when the trees are budding it just does not matter anymore. Im going fishing.

[lew]

Season here has been terrible also. if it were not for vacuum, I would be done. My gravity woods won't run in this 60+ degree heat. We have been getting frosts every night this past week but only collected 200 gallons sap from 900 taps on gravity from 2 different woods. On the other hand, our vacuum woods has been producing 1.75 to 1.6 gallons sap per tap every day until yesterday when it only produced 1.1 gallons. It's getting terribly dry here and we need rain to keep up the sap flow. Only got to 31 degrees here last night, we'll see what we get in a little while. Our problem is there is no sugar in our sap. We have been hit with the catepillars 3 years in a row. This year not as bad as the others. We started out with 1.5 and down to 1 now. That's a lot of water to haul. Thank goodness we have an RO.

[maple flats]

Worst ever, so far. I am still holding some hope. My buds are still tight (all sugars this year) and looking at the long range forcast from 4 sources, all call for a streatch of maple weather starting Wed or Thurs and going several days past there. The Accu Weather 15 day and one other say 3/29 and 3/30 will not even get above freezing. If we do have 2 days in a row with no above freezing temps the sap should be turned on real good when it warms. These long range forecasts always change but there is hope. This will put the CV adapters to a real test. Now if I could only hook up a vac pump before this hits I might partially rescue this terrible season. I have only gotten 570 gal sap on the season so far, that is almost 1 gal/tap. If my first year had been this bad I likely would have been cured of the maple disease and would not have a sugarhouse and all of my other necessities now, and would not be looking forward to getting more.

[Russell Lampron]

Can't complain here. If the sugar wasn't so bad I would have easily passed last years record total. I am just under 120 gallons, that's not counting what we drank, of grade A syrup produced and I am still getting sap. The vacuum has been a real season saver this year. My buckets have done about 1/2 what they did last year. I am hoping for snow instead of rain and some cold nights for this next week to keep things alive here.

[Woodland Acres]

We are a little above average for this time of season. Still had enough snow to help us through the warm spell. Was amazed how quick the ground sucked the water in from the snow melt. Even the normal wet areas in the bush are dry.Gravity tubing is doing real poor here also. We should make a lot in the next week if the forcast is accurate. What really helped us was the sugar content was high, above 3 percent on some and 5 percent in another area.

[larrboy]

This has been one of the worst years ever for our operation, we have 364 buckets out and we have only made about 35 gallons of syrup. It is terrible dry here, we need some snow/rain, we were supposed to get it today and the sun has been out most of the day here. I think my trees have dried out anyways so I don't think it will matter what the weather does from here forward. At this point I am not even looking forward to next year. We have had 3-4 bad years in a row, at this point I am trying to decide if it is worth it.
:(

[the old guy]

We Are Little West And South Of You Guys (so In). Like Yours The Year Began With Little Or Nothing To Show. Sap Was Slow To Come And As Of The End Of Feb. Came We Had Only About 15 Gallons Of Syrup Made (we Are Usually About Done At That Time). Then We Had A Week Of Good Weather For Sap. Almost All The Syrup For This Season Came In That One Week Period. We Filled All Our Storage Tanks, Gathering Tanks And Boiled Late Every Night. We Collected Nearly 4000 Gallons Sap This Year And, Probably 3500 Gal Came In A Week And A Half Period. Production Went Better Than The Last Two Years And Most Of The Syrup Graded Medium. So Take Heart Guys It May Stiill Happen To Be A Great Year Even Though It May Be A Bit Later For Maple Syrup!

The Old Guy

[deacm]

I pulled my taps yesterday. I guess the good news for this poor year is that I only had to work a week to get my yield (about half what I usually get). I tapped on March 4th, boiled three times in the next week (hardly getting 45 gallons of sap each time out of my 39 taps) and ended up with 3 gallons of syrup. I give it away for gifts each year so there are going to be some disappointed relatives this year.The sap hardly flowed at all weeks two and three and never got 40+ gallons of sap again. It was strange only working one week to get my yield. THAT'S never happened before.

[Saltlick]

My uncle always told me , when the weather turns warm and you find black flies in the sap,, YOUR DONE. Well, they arrived here yesterday. Today, I'm pulling out. Got about a 25% yield. The last two years were great, so I guess that's farming..

[wally]

My uncle always told me , when the weather turns warm and you find black flies in the sap,, YOUR DONE. Well, they arrived here yesterday. Today, I'm pulling out. Got about a 25% yield. The last two years were great, so I guess that's farming..

had those show up last week, and that's when i pulled my barrels. ended up with my yearly average for syrup, so a good year for me. no complaints.

a bonus is that i'll be 100% cleaned up prior to april for the first time EVER. :o

[KenWP]

So far the seasons okay. I had only made 2 gallons of syrup at this time last year.I am near 12 gallons right now. Weather says its supposed to get cold here starting wens. so I should get a bit more sap still. All the old guys say that more syrup gets made in April then march around here so if that happens I will need to figure out how to store it pretty soon.

[wildacres]

Hi fellow sufferers...

Truly abysmal down in south-central NH, as my earlier post ("Bad - or the Worst") suggested. :( It is interesting to note that several of you have offered that it was in fact the worst in over a decade.

On the good news side - my entire wood pile for next year is in place, and will be extra dry next year!:lol:

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Interesting note on the black flies. I only put out 15 buckets but I have had 100's of black flies the past couple of times, that is 100's in nearly each bucket. Never seen anything like it in my life.

[HudsonHawk]

I have only been doing this a couple of years, so I don't have lots of perspective, but this was a SHORT season! I even tapped earlier than I did last year, and I still made less than 2009. Now...I am a VERY small time tapper, but I added 6 new taps, bringing me to 22 taps and made only 2 gals. Last year with 8 fewer taps I made 3 gals!
I, of course do this for the fun, but this year was very disappointing. I LOVE doing this and if not for being a little short on evaporator cash would be doing a lot more trees! Oh well.....there's always next year....

[Dan Bolton]

Our season is just about done here in New York or at least it is for us! We put out about 350 tap's this year down from last year at which we had about 450 tapped! We had a big snow storm totalling 30 inches and it made it hard to get to all of our tree's. Our season was bad just like everyone else I have been hearing around our area! We just made 50 gallon's. Last year we made 120!

[220 maple]

2010 Season in Eastern Panhandle - Potomac Highlands of West Virginia. I usually open 2200 holes each year and annually make over 200 gallons of syrup. That my friends is very poor. But my camp is located near Upper Tract, WV. and the West Virginia history books claim it is the dryest location in the state. I truely believe that is the case. This season I got the gift that keeps on giving. SNOW,SNOW, and a little more SNOW. I know many on here got to much snow. I recieved 30 inches in early Feb. and I trudged many a mile on snow shoes and got 870 holes open by Feb. 17. By the end of Feb. we had boiled 3200 gallons of 2.5% water. As of Friday we went over 11000 gallon of water for the season, the last I checked it was holding at 2.0%. We have 250 gallons of syrup, 165 gallons of Fancy, the sap is cloudy but I have not smelled buddy water yet. The trees do not appear to have any buds? Hard to believe as warm and wet as it's been. We had five night in a row ending Sunday mourning with frost and temps in the upper 20's. We may make some more, hoping to make some grade c syrup. Some other factors that may have caused this. 1. Virgin Trees 2. Tubing and Pipeline built for High Vacuum. 3. 35 CFM Indiania Liquid Ring Vacuum holding 18 to 22 pounds of vacuum. 4. CheckValve Spouts. My best season ever. Can only imagine what would have been with the other 2200 taps open. 750 gallons?

Mark 220 Maple