Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

It's 50 degrees in hinesburg, still basically just a trickle. I'm in the banana belt so I would expect to thaw a little earlier than most.

The sap was running harder than this right up until it froze Saturday night - it's like they are still too frozen do do anything. I don't think my taps were showing signs of drying up before it froze Saturday night. I didn't get a chance to walk my woods this morning but I will later this afternoon if things still haven't picked up.

The taps are all CV2 spouts on 2-year old tubing... I ran my pump right up until the freeze saturday so sap wasn't just sitting around in the lines very long - maybe the taps have dried up, but if they have it's not for lack of trying on my part. I'll monitor it more throughout the day.

Is it running for anyone else?

I haven't pulled my taps yet and at the moment it is running quite well just on gravity. I would not want to try boiling the sap, but it is running...

58 here in Barnet. Mine are only at a trickle. I think it is just from the 4 day freeze.

It has picked up here. I dumped the few hundred gallons I got yesterday and this morning, but now It's running clearer so I've closed the valves. Testing 1.7, no smell. I cleaned the releaser and our single booster yesterday early morning and that did smell, it was not fun. Good luck all!

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Originally Posted by GiddingsHill

It has picked up here. I dumped the few hundred gallons I got yesterday and this morning, but now It's running clearer so I've closed the valves. Testing 1.7, no smell. I cleaned the releaser and our single booster yesterday early morning and that did smell, it was not fun. Good luck all!

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Similar situation here. I opened my releaser and cleaned during the cold spell. It was quite bad. My sap did not run at all yesterday, and through the night, and only started late morning when temperature reached 47. First sap was quite cloudy, but running much clearer, and with moderate flow now at 1.4%. I switched tanks, and will probably dump the 75 gallons of cloudy sap, which was a line flush I think.

It's starting to pick up a bit in Hinesburg - It was about 3 hours to the first time my releaser dumped, then 45 minutes, then 30 minutes, most recent one was 25 minutes... When it runs really hard it will dump about every 2 minutes - so the flow rate is about 20 times less than max flow rate, but it's ramping up.

(If anyone cares about seeing how the sap is running in hinesburg, I have my releaser posting messages on twitter so I can watch it from work - https://twitter.com/ryebryesreleasr the couple things that happened earlier this morning before the 3 hour delay were me cleaning it out and testing it before leaving it for the day)

Running 500 GPH here at the border. Sap is clearing up after a few hours of running. Tanks are cleaned again and the valves are closed. It's time to get back to sugaring. Should run all night and then tomorrow.

Spud

I expected more here in Jonesville. The pumps started at 11:00 and I have about 100 gallons. I dumped the first 50 but it looks clearer now. Anytime I’m dumping the releaser in 10 minutes or less is great. Seems to be about 25-35 minutes at this point. Im thinking I’ll let it run all night and see if the trees are just slow to thaw. The ground is very dry here and I don’t think that helps. My 2¢

very slow, turned pumps off, 2200 taps 200 gals 6 hrs. I guess when you hit april, and the ground has hardened up below, as well as chemical changes in the tree from recent 70's for 3 days its game over. I guess could have saved up for a couple days but if it didn't do much today then I cant see it getting any better!!

Or your tapholes just dried up. I'm still getting an impressive amount of sap on gravity...tempting but not going to do it.

For anyone still interested I did start a thread on making buddy syrup.

http://mapletrader.com/community/sho...Flavored-Syrup