How many Bottles to Get? (How much Syrup to Plan for?)

[user587]

This is the first "real" year for me, I'm planning to tap about 300 trees in Lapeer County. (approx. 50% silver, 25% red, 25% sugar). How much sap/syrup should I be prepared for? I need to buy some bottles, not sure how many.

Thanks!!!

Scott

[red maples]

your best bet is to plan for just over a quart per tap with a few extra small bulk containers... Blue 5 gallon plastic just in case.

But there is more info needed rather than type of trees, buckets, gravity tubing, Vacuum? reason being, reds are finicky one may run like crazy the other may run a little and another you might get a few drops. silvers I don't much about, and sugars will run OK by themselves!!

[user587]

Thanks for the reply. I forgot to mention - 25 of the 300 are on gravity tubing, and all others are simply sap sacs hanging on the trees.

About half of the taps are single taps on 8-15" dia. trees in a woods that was logged out many years ago, the next generation of trees are growing and appear healthy. The other half are a mix of larger yard trees and misc. The tubed trees are all silvers in a swamp.

[firetech]

I run mostly sugar and a few reds just because. When I did 66 taps we had 19gals of syrup, 220 taps made 83 gals, 320 taps made 100 gals, 350 taps and 50gals. So it depends on the year. We are 40 miles west of you. We put most of our syrup in 5gal containers and deal with syrup as we can. Bottles are bought according to our need for the markets that we go to.

[Maplewalnut]

Very high level estimate- dont worry about silvers vs reds vs sugars...woods trees or yard trees...saks vs buckets. As Red Maples says plan for 1 quart of finished syrup per tap and have enough holding capacity for 2 gallons of sap per tap per day. Of course you won't get 2 gallons of sap per day all season but it should work out for you. Good Luck