Western New York

[mudr]

I tapped on 2/3 - all drop lines and buckets. Collected about 55 gallons total. 7 of which to fill the evap. I am newer to the hobby and have seen talk of tapping to early?

Roughly 50 taps

Generally speaking, when you tap a tree it is analogous to you getting a cut on your body. Just like your body creates a scab to close off the wound and prevent future infection, the tree will seal-off the taphole. Once you drill that hole, the clock starts ticking. In a typical bucket or gravity tubing scenario you have about 6 weeks of usable taphole life. If you tap too early and then an extended cold spell hits, you run the risk of missing some good later season runs. This is why folks stress on tap timing. And to be honest, you don't know what the "correct date" is until after the season is done!

One interesting read (there are others): http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/tapping.pdf

[Userj8670]

Thanks for the reply! Seems that i might have jumped a little early - what SAFE recourse do I have?

Jim

[lyford]

Userj8670, At this point I'd just leave em and see how things turn out. You could always tap new trees (if you have more trees available) later in the season if you are seeing your original taps drop off in sap production. Some people will also ream the original holes when production drops off. I've personally never done this, but generally results aren't great and are short lived.

[mudr]

Thanks for the reply! Seems that i might have jumped a little early - what SAFE recourse do I have?

Jim

I wouldn't worry about it, not much to do now. I think many of us are in the same boat, and we don't *know* if it was the correct decision until after the season.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

I put in about 70 yesterday with minimal flow. I hope the trees loosened up overnight with warmer temps. This is a new bush with a shurflo setup. Very little slope so it's kind of an experiment. I will get the other 100 or so done soon and waiting on buckets this year until we get more consistent warm ups (if that's even a thing anymore).

[wnybassman]

Just before dark last night I closed the valve on the tank as it was a small steady stream. I went down to the tank after work today expecting anywhere from 40 to 200 gallons. It was right about at 180 gallons. A little over a gallon per tap in less than 24 hours. Glad I got the evaporator ready last night. The RO is NOT however!! I am going to fire up around 5:00 am tomorrow and run it for a bit before my dad gets here, and I have to go to work. Didn't check the percentage.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

Got about 75 gallons and my Shurflo was up to 13 inches, so about 1 GPT. Sap is at 2.3%. I'm still working out the system and had some hiccups but the new oil rig boils great. Flip on a switch and go. Just need to get my shurflo to 20+ inches like others here have done. To be fair, my bypass line is not running yet. I heard that helps.

Gotta get the next 90 or so in and then the buckets. Should hit 200 taps this year with 160 of those on some vac.

Maple season is here in western NY again.

[wnybassman]

Had enough to sweeten the pan and even draw off about a gallon. Gotta get the RO going, hard going back to the old way lol

[barnbc76]

I'm working on getting the components to build one, can't wait to test it.

[82cabby]

Put everything in today. 108 taps total. Missed the early runs but didn't have time to boil anyway. Nothing running today at all, every hole was dry, which is good because my next chance to fire things up is next Saturday. Looks like we might get a run late in the week though.