Sap running in Morrison County, Mn. (Motley, Mn.)

[SYRUP FREAK]

Tapped 30 trees to test the run today, as the weatherman has been changing his mind lately, all but two were dripping as soon as they were drilled. Will do another 40 tomorrow. I know this is short lived as next week is cold, but good for this early. Have a new homemade evaporator to test out.

[SYRUP FREAK]

Read about 3 days ago that someone was getting 4.5% sap. I talked to a commercial producer an he said that was impossible and if you get 2.5% your doing above average. Anybody else getting that rich of sap?

[North!]

When I tapped in Chisago County we had a pasture lot that had big crowned sugars and they often tested up in the 4.5 range. Those were awesome trees that produced full 5 gallon buckets of sap per tap in 24 hours. In Northern Minnesota we have a range of 2.6 some seasons, and 3.2 others. Rarely is it lower, between, or higher. We do typically start the season between 1-1.5, and steadily climb upwards.

[MN Jake]

We have had a couple seasons where some trees at the old mans place read 5.5 on the sap hydro. Even after boiling we were averaging 20/1. My property is a couple miles down the river from him and never has tested the same but we still average 25-30/1. His maples are younger, maybe 12-24". The maples all but stop upstream from his property. I have very few that size. Most trees on my property are 24" on up to the largest maybe 72". Younger forest-older forest? Not sure what causes that difference in a couple miles.I have in years past tapped some trees at a nursery where they tested at 5.5-6 also. I have never tapped anything but silvers, except one. Someone will call Bologna on me but one sugar maple tested so high that the bulb of the sap hydro was up out of the water. I figured it had to go ten or so.

[SYRUP FREAK]

Your going to be bottling right out of the tree pretty soon.

[MN Jake]

Nope, these silvers are a P I T A. I'll be lucky to make anything this year at all. A lot of them flowered Thursday before the cold snap but at the same time the ground was frozen solid. Couldn't hardly suck anything out of them. I'm in construction so I know the frost was 4 feet deep again this year due to no snow cover. My question is will they restart? It got down to 14 Friday night here and high teens again Saturday night. I have searched to see if it's been discussed here but didn't really find an answer.

[SilverLeaf]

MN Jake - this year is mostly uncharted territory. On my silvers once they flower the sap normally peters out pretty fast. However.... in 2015 (another bizarre year, and the closest to this year I've seen, at least in my area) I collected more sap after they flowered than I did before! Was real excited too because I didn't detect any buddiness as I boiled. HOWEVER, the longer it went, the more "ropey" the syrup became (search this site if you don't know what that is), to the point where it became unusable.

What's the same between 2015 & 2017: The best sap-flowing weather seems to be after the buds have opened.
What's different between 2015 & 2017: We got a better freeze, just a smidge earlier in the flowering process this year. Friday night was a pretty good freeze, and that usually sets the buds back. At least it does if the buds haven't really opened yet! Don't know what will happen with these flowers.

So, my take: the trees will definitely restart. You're going to have a lot of sap this week & next. The only question is: will it be ok? And unfortunately we might not know that until we get it processed down.

[Schnep's]

Put out just 30 of my 100 taps yesterday(the ones in the yard)and got about 30 gallons. Test taps in the woods not doing much yet, will wait on them.
I am located at south end of Mille Lacs lake

[Keitha333]

I have about 45 gallons so far just south of you near Milaca. Yesterday was a good day and emptied them around 3:00. Each one was dripping pretty good and wouldn't be surprised if there were some with another gallon. 23 gallons yesterday on 30 taps.