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That was definitely the way people thought 25+ yrs ago. However with good vacuum, reds will produce quite well. We went from having no red maples tapped in our sugarbush to about 1/3 of our taps being red maple. We make plenty of great tasting maple syrup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugar Bear
We do have a project starting next spring comparing sap yield, sugar content, timing of buddy flavor development, wounding, and syrup flavor. Dr. Abby is the PI on that project.
Dr Tim,Quote:
Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins
Cant wait to see the results on this study. That was definitely the thought 25 years ago, but there is so much untapped potential in our area (im assuming all over the maple country). Ive said it before we tap all reds and do pretty well all things considered. The syrup tastes great and have so many repeat customers, would highly recommend that people not skip over red maples, they go just as long and most could probably gain 20-50 percent more taps. Just my 2 cents
Kevin
Almost all of my 150 taps are reds and are woods trees. In my experience, they make less syrup in general than sugars, though it has excellent flavor and I have many satisfied customers that prefer my syrup especially. In my operation, I try to do all of the best tapping and sanitation practices, i.e. "strive for 5", new CV spouts each year, new drops every 5 years, tapping depth 2" with tapping bit, seating until thud only, etc. Even with decent vacuum (average about 25 inches at releaser, 23 at top of farthest lateral), I've never been able to make the coveted 0.5 gpt. Best ever was 0.42 in 2018 with all new drops. In my chart below, I attribute about 20% less production in years 2015 and 2017 due to trips to Florida at tail end of season. The reds run a very comparable time-frame to the sugar maples, but sap yield does tend to tail off a bit toward the end relative to my neighbors with sugars, in spite of CV spouts and good sanitation. Also my sugar content averages maybe 0.2-0.3% less than neighbors with sugar maples.
Attachment 22355
“ Hopefully you mean Filter-Aid/DE and not Filter-Brite”
Yes, Filter-Aid purchased from my maple supplier. Thanks for the clarification.
That sounds like a very interesting project. Please post the results of that when done.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins
I have no more sugars to tap so I will be tapping some Red Maples next year. I plan to set up some kind of vacuum on them.
I tapped a few this year along with a silver. Got decent sap flow on gravity to buckets.
They never showed more the half a percent sugar this year. Had a home built RO to deal with them however and they made great syrup very much if not the same as the sugar syrup.
With that said I would still tap the sugars over the reds if I had more to tap, but I do not, so I will tap the many Reds I have.
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