Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[DrTimPerkins]

Definitely was a good year for the lower elevations. We finished out with 3090 gallons, .57 or 6.3 lbs per tap.

Seems like you folks mid-south VT were in the "sweet" spot this year -- as long as you caught those early flows. Congrats.

Remains to be seen how the rest of the state, especially Chittenden/Franklin/Lamoille and the NEK will do. Still a decent amount of snow in the woods in some places. Much depends on how hot it gets and for how long it stays hot next week. For most folks it's looking like a decent crop, perhaps a bit low in the colder spots. Most likely not a real banner year (like last yr) for most though.

We have one research area where the snow just pulled back from the trees within the past few days.

[Andy VT]

Predictions about maple production out beyond about a week are not worth much.

That's quite a bit better than the stock market!

[Sugar Bear]

This isn't an abnormal thing in biology. If excess energy is made (or consumed), then a portion of the excess can get stored for later use. In people that's as fat -- in plants it is a starch. It may be converted later and get used, or may just hang around for a long time. The difference is that in trees the starches tend to be laid down within the rays of annual rings, but more can be added and some can be remobilized down the road as needed. Rays are the tissues that 1. are living and 2. cut across annual rings, so the mobility of the sugar is higher than many other compounds in the wood.

The sugar we collect by tapping comes from many annual rings of rays in the wood. In fact, the average age of the sugar molecules in maple syrup tends to be around 3 yrs, but ranges from less than 1 to 20-25 yrs. The hydraulic conductivity (the ability/rate/amount of sap to move through the stem) and carbohydrate levels tend to be highest in the outermost rings, then drop off as we get deeper. That's why drilling a taphole beyond a certain depth doesn't get us a lot more syrup yield. These reasons (higher sugar in the newest rings and higher hydraulic conductivity in newer rings) are why we've designed the barb spout https://mapleresearch.org/pub/innova...ystems-spouts/ currently being tested in several places in the U.S. and Canada. The new spout design allows better collection from shallower parts of the taphole and allows better collection during the frequent short thaw periods (when only the outermost portion of the wood thaws out) in which normal spouts do not run or run much.

At a certain point (decades), some amount of carbs are lost due to continued tree growth when the sapwood deep in the tree eventually converts to heartwood and is thus lost to the tree (and to sugarmakers).

Before the season starts, from the fall through the winter, the sap in xylem tends to be quite low in sugar (it's all being converted to starch and stored for future use). That's why when people try fall and early-winter tapping the sap tends to have very low sugar so syrup yields tend to be lower.

As a woodworker I have noticed that the rays ( I call it "Ray Flecking ) within the rings (visible best on a quartersawn aspect of lumber) vary with intensity across the surface of a quartersawn board. At least so in a visible sense to the human eye.

Does this mean that a spout that is tapped into a area of stem with higher ray count in it will produce sap with higher sugar content then one that is tapped into an area with low ray count?

Is the carb converted to sugar at the location of storage in the ray and then passed into the sap or is it passed into the sap and converted somewhere else. thereby making all sap within the tree the same sugar content at a given moment in time of sap flow within the tree?

[blissville maples]

Congrats on the good season in tropical southern Vermont. I have a friend in the Poultney area and every time I get snow I text him. He usually replies with something about planting banana trees next year I'm still checking for leaks with snow shoes on. Not looking good.

No tropical weather this spring thank God, I was waiting for it. Greenes or mahar? Lots of producers big and small in the area. Although you used to see a lot more sap tanks in the back of trucks five six years ago.

[blissville maples]

Seems like you folks mid-south VT were in the "sweet" spot this year -- as long as you caught those early flows. Congrats.

Remains to be seen how the rest of the state, especially Chittenden/Franklin/Lamoille and the NEK will do. Still a decent amount of snow in the woods in some places. Much depends on how hot it gets and for how long it stays hot next week. For most folks it's looking like a decent crop, perhaps a bit low in the colder spots. Most likely not a real banner year (like last yr) for most though.

We have one research area where the snow just pulled back from the trees within the past few days.

Yes we had pretty much perfect weather for 5 weeks. Tapped in by Feb 10th and boiled the 12th. We usually start off slow but this year it was full bore right off the bat. I think anything over 1200-1500 ft that's where things got locked up. We had many days that it ran well and it was 34 to 38° which never gets above freezing in the mountains.

[DrTimPerkins]

Does this mean that a spout that is tapped into a area of stem with higher ray count in it will produce sap with higher sugar content then one that is tapped into an area with low ray count?

Trees with more and larger rays tend to produce more sap with higher sugar content. https://mapleresearch.org/pub/vascularrays/

Is the carb converted to sugar at the location of storage in the ray and then passed into the sap or is it passed into the sap and converted somewhere else. thereby making all sap within the tree the same sugar content at a given moment in time of sap flow within the tree?

Stored carbs are in the form of starch grains. These are insoluble, so enzymes must convert some of the starch into sugar (mostly sucrose), which is soluble, in order to mobilize it. There is a profile of sap sugar concentration within the stem, with a general trend from highest in the outermost rings and dropping as you go deeper into the tree. This trend is the same for hydraulic conductivity (sap flow rate) within rings...highest in the outermost rings and dropping as you go deeper. That is the basis for why we've designed the barb-spout. It blocks off less of the outermost rings of wood and allows higher flow rates of slightly sweeter sap.

[DaveB]

Things slowed down a bit, but sap still coming in. SSC dropping slowly. Rain helped some. At about 0.48 gpt syrup now...mostly light syrup with good flavor. Hoping the good freeze on Sat will spur a nice run on Sunday-Wednesday. That'd push us into about the 0.55 gpt range. Won't last too much beyond that based upon the forecast. Overall looking like it will be a fairly average season here production wise, but played out a bit oddly.

I've been monitoring your average 15-day temperature because I wanted to see how it lined up with my observation in SNE with my sap production and how sap production dropped when the average 15-day temperature went above freezing. It sure is remarkable how well it lines up with a slowing of sap production. The average 15-day temperature at Proctor through 4/4 was below 32 and you reported great sap flows. It is now above freezing and you're reporting things slowing down, right on schedule with the 15-day average temperature. I only have my data and anecdotal data to support this but sap may flow when you have freeze/thaw cycles but it seems like it flows best when the 15-day average temperature is below freezing.

[OrangeAgain]

I've been monitoring your average 15-day temperature...

Where do you monitor average temps?

[DaveB]

It's kind of a manual process to get the 15-day average but I've been keeping a daily weather record (high, low, rain/snow) since 1985. It's in Excel now and I calculate each days average temp and average the last 15 days. If You don't have a weather station, you can pull the data from a nearby weather station on weather underground like this one in Albany, VT:

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboa...3-04-7/monthly

You can copy and paste the table at the bottom and average it from there. Change the month as needed.

Complicated I know but doable.

[TapTapTap]

I have a personal weather station consisting of an Ambient WS2000 that is hooked up to weather underground.

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KVTWILLI29

It's easy to set up and there's no charge for the website.

Ken