Originally Posted by
WVKeith
Well, another season is wrapping up. I have enjoyed reading all of the post on the West Virginia site by canaanmaple, lilshot and 220 mapler, and following their season this year. I always plan to put in my own posts, but when the season starts, I always get too busy.
Anyhow, at least I can summarize my season at the end. If there is one adjective that can be used to describe this season, it is: “overwhelming”. I more than doubled my tap count (from 680 to 1,430), and then, with the great weather this spring in Preston County, I increased my production 360% (from 131 gallons last year to 475 gallons this year)! This, of course, resulted in many long hours of pumping, boiling and bottling the increase in syrup, but what a great syrup year.
Expansion:
Late last year, I obtained permission to expand one lease (175 more taps on Mike Cole’s property) and to initiate another large lease (575 taps on Phyllis and Greg Thomas’s property). This resulted in the addition of 750 taps to my previous 680, along with an additional 700 ft of mainline, 1600 ft of pump line and 4 miles of 3/16” tubing. Of course the pump line had to be cut through some of the densest brush on my property, and the hillside for the tubing had an elevation change of 140 ft at a 15% grade. And even with being retired, this expansion was still being rushed to be completed by the beginning of the tapping season.
Production:
Half of my taps were installed on Sunday, February 3rd and then the other half were installed the following weekend, February 9th and 10th. My last boil was on Thursday, March 28th and the taps were pulled by the following weekend, a very productive 8-week season. I had 5 major runs this season, with the last one being 2.5 weeks long. I boiled 22 nights and made a total of 475 gallons of syrup, or an average of 22 gallons for an average 5-hour boil. The initial syrup graded just a little bit darker than amber and continued to gradually darken throughout the season, with the last 100 gallons grading as very dark.
In total, I collected 48,500 gallons of sap for an average of 34 gallons per tap. Further, with the production of 475 gallons of syrup, the season averaged 0.33 gallons per tap. This sap production per tap is 77% greater and the syrup production per tap is 66% greater than my average for the last few years, and is mostly due to the great weather with some contribution from all of the new tubing. Also, my new 3/16” lines with the 5/16” drops seemed to run harder and longer than those with 3/16” drops. Unfortunately, my trees continue to be diabetic with a final ratio of 102 gallon of sap to 1 gallon of syrup (I love my RO).
Keith