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Thread: Operation extreme tapoff

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
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    Theron,
    Its early for us but with all your taps I understand. Good luck this year! I know you put a ton of effort into making syrup!
    Regards,
    Chris
    Casbohm Maple and Honey
    625 roadside taps + Neighbors bring some sap too!
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    Too many Cub Cadets
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    www.mapleandhoney.com

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
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    Elliottsburg, PA
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    Go, Theron, Go.
    1st Generation Hobby Maple Producer, you got to start somewhere.
    222 Taps, all on Vacuum! No more buckets.
    Lapierre 2'x5' raised flue w/Hood and Preheater
    Surge SP11, Lapierre Hobby Releaser
    Modified 5" Filter Press made by Daryl with a Gear Pump
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    Hardy's Maple Syrup on Facebook

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
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    NE Pa
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    Thanks you guys, hopefully this will be a real good year. Theron

  4. #14
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    Jan 2008
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    Hopkinton, MA
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thompson's Tree Farm View Post
    Theron has 8000 +, is working full time and is doing it himself so it's not too early.
    Check out his signature. He's at 11.5K. Theron, you should have been tapping an month and a half ago. Get going!
    Woodville Maples
    www.woodvillemaples.com
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    Around 300 taps on tubing, 25+ on buckets if I put them out
    Mix of natural and mechanical vac, S3 Controller from Mountain Maple
    2x6 W.F. Mason with Phaneuf pans
    Deer Run 250 RO
    Ford F350
    6+ hives of bees (if they make it through the winters)
    Keeping the day job until I can start living the dream.

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
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    NE Pa
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    Been out tapping on and off all day. Trees are dry and its pretty cold. Its been sleeting all day. Its kind of nice to just take your time and finetune little things as you go with no pressure. I was thinking if a guy had a lot of taps and that's all he did you could really do a lot with the newer technology letting you tap earlier. Basically you could just wait till it got cold and just tap all winter long till it finally warmed up. Theron

  6. #16
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    Jun 2009
    Location
    Verona, NY
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    yeah im right there with you ill only be running 2500 for this year but between college in a two weeks and the dairy farm I wont have much time after the 13th. im going to get my cv2's next weekend and I might throw in 1,000, then the rest at the end of the month. im working on putting in more still, I have about 300 put up out of the 1200 im adding, but im also working on fixing the rest of the woods too. when all is said and done I want to be tapped no later than January 31, I should be able to get it done in a weekend with the right crew and encouragement (Lunch!!!). also working on some other projects around the saphouse and putting in a sap shed so all my sap is coming to the road. no more carrying gas 1,000 feet which is nice. good luck theron, I hope to be right up in that tap range with ya someday, should be able to if I can add 1,000 a year. at least that is the plan lol but nothing ever goes according to plan!
    7000 taps on vacuum, just trying to get a little better every year.

  7. #17
    Join Date
    May 2009
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    UVM Proctor Maple Research Center, Underhill Ctr, VT
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    Quote Originally Posted by PATheron View Post
    Basically you could just wait till it got cold and just tap all winter long till it finally warmed up. Theron
    Hopefully we'll determine that within the next couple of years.
    Dr. Tim Perkins
    UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
    http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
    https://mapleresearch.org
    Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu

  8. #18
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    Sep 2010
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    Vermont
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    I look forward to reading that study someday. My guess is you will find production in April to be less per tap if you tap in early January. Between my fall tapping experiments and early tapping (early January) I am seeing a production drop after 12 weeks. A tap hole will still be dripping sap after 16 weeks but the amount of sap per run drops a lot (in my woods). A frozen tree will not heal as fast but does it stay frozen all winter? A lot of people tap 6-10 inch trees and it does not take much sun to warm up the tap hole on a sunny winter day. When that happens the tap hole starts to heal. Several of these mini warm ups might have the tap hole drying up a bit even though great sugaring weather is still to come in April. So a person with 1000 taps might be getting 750+ gallons per sap run (in April) but had they tapped in mid Feb the same run may have giving 1500+ gallons. I plan to tap a few weeks earlier this year with CV2s spouts and I am excited to see if my sap runs in April match what they were last season. About 50-85% of all my sap comes in the month of April so I don't want to jeopardize that. I enjoy charting all my production each year in an effort to learn how to be a better sugar maker. Dr Tim's results will help all of us in the future and I am alway waiting for him and PMRC to publish something new. It would be great if the study used both large and small trees.

    Spud

  9. #19
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
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    BECKLEY, WV (SUGARHOUSE DAWSON, WV)
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins View Post
    Hopefully we'll determine that within the next couple of years.
    I tapped about 65% of my taps last year on Jan 8th & 9th and got whole 400 gallons of sap from 400+ taps. The other 35% were tapped after first of February and I would have had a much better production if I had waited and tapped all of them after first of February. All of my taps last year had new clear leader seasonal spouts and new drop lines. The 65% were still running a little bit late in the season, but not nearly as much as the 35%. I know the big guys have to start tapping early to finish, but if you don't have to, I would wait as long as you can. Our season here is usually over around March 21st on average, but I have made syrup into April a couple of times and seen it end by the middle of March. It is hard to make any syrup here before the first of February here. Even with the temps look good in January, the sun is not high enough in the sky like it is later in the season, so the sap won't hardly run and usually too much frost in the ground.
    Brandon

    CDL dealer for All of West Virginia & Virginia
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  10. #20
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
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    Middlebury Center, PA
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    I think deciding when to tap definitely depends on the number pf taps and the year and persons available time to get the job done. If I remember right Theron did pretty good last season tapping early January and still getting sap in late April maybe even May 1. My opinion would be that although taps tapped early might start to run less later on in the season more than likely all of the taps would run during the season peak which for us in PA would be mid March to mid April most seasons.

    Of course you must also consider that with more taps say 11,000 smaller runs can still be pretty large compared to say 1,500. I experienced this last season I actually had a pretty good run after I had emptied and cleaned the evaporator had I had maybe 500 gallons more I would have fired back up as the price of B and C grade is still worth the effort. It would be the same for say a less than par early run having more taps would make an early run worth it.

    Having said that our weather here currently is like a yo yo today was maybe 30' and VERY windy tomorrow is a high of 52' then a high of 25' for the rest of the week.
    Jared

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