Anyone Tapping Yet?

[Tapping Wolf]

I have to admit I tapped a just few today (in northern Indiana) the weather for the next week is pretty good....I chose ten trees that I wasn't planning on tapping this season just to see how the flow was and sugar content....started dripping fast immediately....i was getting 2.2 on the first 5 trees, and 1.9-2.1 on the other five....all red maples (70% of my sugar bush is red maple).....I plan on tapping seriously (weather permiting) the last week of Jan....a week from today our temps are supose to crash....hoping the rest of my trees will be 2% or higher....we'll see the last of jan/first of Feb

[Cranberry Hill Farm]

Was wondering if you have ever seen the North East not get a winter?

Well, I never had to shovel snow off of my barn roofs until last winter. I never went without power for 14 days until last fall. I never saw 12" of snow in October until last year. So could 2012 be the year that the sap run starts in January?

[killingworthmaple]

" Was wondering if you have ever seen the North East not get a winter? "

Ya this part of CT there has been years that it doesn't really freeze up and the ground stays pretty soft. I didn't tap in those years so I don't know how that would affect sap flow.

[adk1]

Well actually it depends on where your at, with all due respect Dr. Perkins. Here in southern Ohio I have watched this stupid weather all fall and more than once debated even fall tapping, but always talked myself out of it by saying winter will set in soon as I tap. I have given in and started the process to gear up today. I been cleaning and making up drops. Ordered supplies and will set up the evaporator first thing next week. I'd do it now but have an out of state trip for a couple days. My guess is winter will come, but it will be February and early March and season will be heavily impacted, so I'm getting what early syrup i can. I have a maple behind the house I had trimmed a limb off from a month ago and that thing has dripped sap day after day. I could have already made some syrup! Two years ago it was like this and I tapped on the 20th of January and made half my syrup by February 10th, the next six weeks turned cold and snowy and then boom spring. It took me six weeks to make what I made in 4 or five early boils. Other syrup producers that waited took it in the shorts. I just sense this will be a lot like that year. My ace is I have enough trees to tap early then pull and tap more if I'm wrong. Since I'm a small hobbyist, clean up isn't an issue. If it turns bad I'll shut down, clean up and wait. That is a long answer for saying, that by next weekend (if the weather is unchanged) I'll have taps out and hopefully be boiling.

I will never tap in the fall, but am curious to know if you can tap the same trees in the spring if you do tap in the fall? There must be less sugar content in the sap if you do I would imagine?

[spud]

If your going to tap in the fall then use a 1/4 inch spout. This way you can ream the hole for a larger spout in the spring. Read Proctor's studies on fall tapping. I found it to be very interesting.

Spud

[batsofbedlam]

I listened to Steve Broderick on the AM radio this morning (WILI). Winter is just starting. Remember there is always a delay between the shortest day of the year (winter solstice) and its effect on global weather. I'd give it a good month before we see spring breaking.

[DrTimPerkins]

I will never tap in the fall, but am curious to know if you can tap the same trees in the spring if you do tap in the fall? There must be less sugar content in the sap if you do I would imagine?

It is NOT recommended to tap trees in the fall and then put in a new taphole in the same tree in the spring. This creates two wounds instead of one. Sugar content is typically higher in the spring than in the fall due to patterns of carbohydrate sequestration and use. Trees tend to convert most of their sugar (which moves in the sap stream) to starch (which is immobile) for winter, and then convert it back from starch to sugar for the spring.

[DrTimPerkins]

If your going to tap in the fall then use a 1/4 inch spout. This way you can ream the hole for a larger spout in the spring. Read Proctor's studies on fall tapping. I found it to be very interesting.

Just a quick clarification....we don't suggest doing this. The 1/4" spout was introduced with this idea in mind back when syrup supplies were very short and the industry needed more syrup quickly and badly. The manufacturers and promulgators of doing this never tested it to my knowledge, but it did mean people would buy 2X the number of spouts each year...which is very smart for the sellers of such a thing I suppose. All the research I've seen indicates that this is not a terribly viable approach for the majority of producers, although there are definitely some who swear by it.

Years ago (first patent I know of was in 1870), there were spouts that had two sizes cast into one spout. The idea being that you'd drill a smaller hole first and put the spout in small end first. Then when the tapholes dried out, you'd come back, pull the spout, ream the hole a little bigger, then turn the spout around and insert the large-end into the hole. Some of the real popular spouts (Warner) introduced in the early-1900s came in two sizes (3/8" and 7/16") so you could ream and replace them in mid-season. For the most part, this fell out of favor and very few people every continued the process, which is fairly labor intensive.

[farmall h]

.........sequestration .

I had to get the college dictionary out for that one Dr.T

[DrTimPerkins]

I had to get the college dictionary out for that one Dr.T

Good. If I haven't gone to the dictionary at least once it hasn't been a productive day.