I am 30 miles south of Chicago and tapped on Thursday and I have not got a drop even over the entire weekend. I am just wondering with the ground might still be too frozen or what.
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I am 30 miles south of Chicago and tapped on Thursday and I have not got a drop even over the entire weekend. I am just wondering with the ground might still be too frozen or what.
Keep the Faith. It will flow when conditions are right. I have half my trees tapped as of yesterday and today it is 45F and nothing. However - The frost went deep this Winter and I still have 2 to 3 feet of snow on the ground (at least I hope there is ground still underneath). A few more days of freezing at night and above freezing during the day and it should happen.
I'm 30 miles SW of Chicago and the story is the same here. I tapped Friday and only have about 20 gallons from 33 taps as of tonight. Unfortunately, it seems like it is going to take quite a few warm days to melt the snow and thaw the ground.
I'm about 40 miles SEE if Chicago, here in Indiana... Same story, total of 30 gallons in 4 days off 80 taps, not a very good season so far... A busy of mine next town over says he's doing ok on vacuum, I'm all gravity, mostly buckets
My wife is from Peoria so I "peek" in every once and a while to see what is happening out in Illinois. It seems like a northern IL thing but I know there are some larger producers in central IL. Are you guys affected by the wind? Out here if the wind is blowing hard that it affects sap production. I'm not sure about out there.
I'm about 100miles west of Chicago.I have 15 taps out and have collected about 8 gal. sap so far.I boiled that down yesterday to get my first 8oz.of syrup.When I checked the buckets today there was maybe 1 gal. total.Now more snow coming.
I am about 50 miles SW of Chicago Joliet Il I have 25 taps out and got 15G sap this AM. 2 to more today for domo and only wet hole no sap run. I thought it would run good today.
I'm 35 miles west of Chicago. Totally dry. At least it's not just me, though.
About a third of them running today, tomorrow looks decent but then cold again for the weekend.
Well its almost 60 here today in west central Illinois. Ran yesterday ok but nothing great. collected 160 gals of sap on 300 taps +_ this morning. My wife kept an eye on things while I was gone. Not much ran the first half the week. Nothing today, didn't freeze up last night. Really afraid it will be a year like 2011. Went from below 0 to 60 degrees in two weeks. made 8 gals all season.
Hoping it'll freeze up tonight well enough for a run tomorrow. Supposed to freeze each night here through Monday. Will believe it when it happens.
As far as sap runs during windy conditions, I always thought it did well during those windy days, but others from CDL say not. Its windy today but way to warm to judge it on todays record.
I also agree until more of the soil thaws out, the sap won't do much either. Most the roots are 1 to 2 foot from the surface that are gathering water and nutrients.
I was wondering the same thing as far as length of the season but we still have about 30% snow cover up here so it's early. I have been talking to guys that have been fixing broken water mains and they are saying the frost is 6' + in the ground, should take a while for that to thaw.
We also had wind today from the south west, about 1/2 of the taps were running. One of the new roadside trees was almost full tonight, I thought maybe somebody was messing with me, as they are in town. I kept the sap separate and checked it when I got home and it was right at 2%.
MapleMounder
Attachment 9186Attachment 9187
I switched to natural gas from fuel oil. So I was a little gun shy on putting all my buckets out until I knew if I had enough heat. I put in a 300,000 BTU burner. I have no idea how many BTU's the fuel oil burner produced. But I think I was running a 6.5 gallon per hour orifice. I am very glad I did not hang them all! I am very behind. what used to take 3 1/2 to 4 hours to cook off is taking 12 plus. Oye..
sure am glad I do not have 140 buckets out there...
so far only about 360 gallon of sap. up I also only have 65 buckets out.
thinking about making a homemade burner for under the syrup half of the pan and extending the flame nozzle of the main burner so it is really only heating the drop flue half of the pan.
okay so all last week on two taps I only ended up with 4 gallons. Tree ran a little weird. This is a black maple. I was wondering if you think this season is still going or done? I saw some silvers have a bunch of buds on them and from what I heard you see that your done. What do you guys think?
where in Il are you?Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkEvilDead
Here in central Il, I do not think we are done. I collected 85 gal today but it was on the cold side, the only things running were on the sunny side of the trees. the north side of the trees still had ice frozen in the tap. yesterday I had mostly dry taps. if the forecasts are close then we should get some nice runs later in the week.
When did you tap?
The sunny days are the best for sap runs with temps in upper 30's to lower 40s. Needs to come off an evening of below freezing temps for several hours min.
I tapped on march 15, have 27 taps, collected 153 gallons so far with some in the buckets. The last day I collected was Saturday and that was only 10 gallons. It looks like Wed will be ok but Sat even better, then Tue. - Thur. I'm in North central Illinois, Rockford area. Hang in there don't pull those taps, hopefully a couple of more weeks as long as we don't see to many days in the 60's.