"what it takes to achieve high yield production"

[DrTimPerkins]

What year did you start using a significant percentage of check valves or do you only use them on a small percentage of your taps?

The mix of things we have done each year has changed over time. This year we probably had 75% of our taps on CV or CV2.

[spud]

Dr. Tim

What was your season average for sugar content? Had I had 2% average this year I would have come close to hitting .6 GPT. Last year my average was 1.7% and this year it dropped to 1.5% A lot of my trees are between 9-12 inches and I average 100 taps per acre. My low back would never allow me to thin my woods so a lot of my crowns will never grow real big. I think my soil is very good (but not sure) and the growth rate of my trees that I test are 1/2 inch per season. I feel the only thing I can do is tap early and shoot for 25+ gallons of sap per tap. I plan to add some more mainline and shorten some laterals for next season. I plan to tap first week of January next year and use all CV2s. It would be great to hit 30 GPT even if the sap test only 1.5%. Where can I bring soil samples for testing? How much does it cost? If lime could help me then I would somehow spread it around the woods. Thanks

Spud

[Thad Blaisdell]

Three major factors are important in achieving high yields:
1. Trees
- size, health, good growth rate, crown exposure, nutrition
2. Vacuum
- proper tubing layout, good tubing installation, wet/dry lines as necessary, low # taps/lateral line.
- vacuum pump capabilities and management (on all the time, or off/on depending on temperature)
- rapid leak detection and correction
3. Spout/drop sanitation
- new spouts every year and new drops every 2-4 yrs (depending on several factors), or
- new CV spouts each year

The next big factor is location. This year lower elevation seemed to be the ticket.

[spud]

Thad,

What did you get for sugar average this year. The elevation of my woods is only 600-700 feet. What is the elevation of your woods? I do know for a fact that had I tapped 2 weeks earlier I would have gotten about 3 GPT more of sap. My back was hurting so bad in January that I was afraid I might miss the whole season. I tapped the third week in January this year and my trees were still running on the 21st of April. By using the new CV2s next season I know I can tap January 1st and run all the way to the end of April if needed. I feel I need more early season sap to help bring my overall sugar content up for the season. My January sap was testing at 2.1% making light syrup but my April sap was only 1% making dark amber and some B grade. The early sap pay's .52 cents a gallon but the late season sap only pay's .27 cents. By using the CV2s I will now be able to get all the early sap and not loose any of the late season sap. I still hope to get 30 GPT of whatever sugar the trees want to give me.

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

The next big factor is location. This year lower elevation seemed to be the ticket.

Yes, this year site was important. Colder bushes didn't do quite as well. I would actually include PMRC in this to some extent. A few degrees warmer on a couple of days and it would have been an amazingly good season.

[markcasper]

Dr. Tim, In regards to your comments about cold bushes: Over the long term, a cold bush will never perform as well as a warmer bush. Would that be a fair assumption? I mean practically every year we always receive those days where we are all saying "if it was just 5 degrees warmer.", on that side of the hill. The reason I bring this up is that I ran a new installation on a north bush this year and quite frankly, I was disappointed. With the location of this woods, I'm thinking it was a big waste of time and money because I can see every year being the same. And then when it does get going good, you get a good week and then its 70's for 3 or 4 days and its over.
On a side note....why do the buds and leaves all come out at exactly the same time whether warm or cold bush? I could never figure this out and this is a good time to ask.

[jrgagne99]

I tend to agree with Mark. It's been my observation that south facing slopes are much more prone to the large temperature swings that drive sap flow. North facing slopes are more tempered by the shade, and in general, don't tend to get the large temperature swings, even later in the season when the weather arrives.

[GeneralStark]

Obviously there are many factors that you can't control in regards to production. One of those is weather, and while you can control to some degree the nature of the woods you are tapping through selection, it seems that the point of this thread was intended to discuss the things a producer can control to get them to .5 gpt.

There are multiple threads on here regarding slope aspect and elevation, and there are many opinions on the matter and every year will be a bit different. For instance, here in the Champlain Valley, the valley producers did better than the high elevation producers, but that is in many ways atypical. But, I think the more important question here in this thread is what can a producer do to make .5gpt on average?

[red maples]

I know there were some big producers that made a bunch syrup in January as they were tapping. As far tapping dates at proctor when do you get tapped in do you watch the weather or do you just pick a date to start? with climates changing and temperature fluctuations and good sap weather happening from january straight through the season. There seem to be less and less extrended deep freezes of day time temps below 32* and with high vac as long as the tree itself isn't too frozen and you may get some sap especially in a warmer sunexposed section of trees. The longer season will add to the amount of syrup you make although tapping very early I would assume the sugar content would be much lower average throughout the season. It would be extra work to keep your membranes on your RO clean and free of any growth as well.

Anythoughts on this?

[spud]

[QUOTE=red maples;225714]I know there were some big producers that made a bunch syrup in January as they were tapping. As far tapping dates at proctor when do you get tapped in do you watch the weather or do you just pick a date to start? with climates changing and temperature fluctuations and good sap weather happening from january straight through the season. There seem to be less and less extrended deep freezes of day time temps below 32* and with high vac as long as the tree itself isn't too frozen and you may get some sap especially in a warmer sunexposed section of trees. The longer season will add to the amount of syrup you make although tapping very early I would assume the sugar content would be much lower average throughout the season. It would be extra work to keep your membranes on your RO clean and free of any growth as well.

Brad,

I was able to get my woods tapped the third week of January. I was hoping to start earlier but my back was hurting real bad. I shipped my first load of sap in January and it tested 2%. I was able to get 80,000 gallons of sap after that first run and all of it was above 2%. Although after I hit 80,000 gallons the sugar dropped and the best I could do was about 1.6-1.7% for the next few weeks. Once April came my sap went down to just 1% and stayed there for the rest of the season. What I found in January was my smaller trees (9-12 inches) would run very good when the sun came out and heated them up. Although the large trees needed more then just one day of sun to get them rolling (and that does not always happen). A small tree thaws much faster allowing me to get good sap runs from them during early season. A lot of people use the CV spouts to extend their season and give them a few more weeks in the end. Some people will say the sap is not worth keeping towards the end of the season. This is because of low sugar and poor quality syrup being made. My thought is by using the CV spout and tapping January 1st I can maximize the GPT and get more sugar early still allowing me to get sap into the end of April.

Spud