Red maple tree tapping

[Russell Lampron]

They can be isolated, and I did go just sugars last year from mid March. But that was graded processing, so I shoulda just left them all on and made more syrup.

The very first year I checked sugar from the soft maples, and from the sugar maples (was mechanical releaser then so easy to check). Sugars were only .2% higher. Should probably compare again sometime but more difficult with electric releaser. Best I've had altogether is 1.7, usually 1.5 and down.

A lot of my reds are big trees with big crowns on high ground. My sugar on a good season is usually around 2% even with the swamp maples mixed in. I can't isolate my sugars but if I could that would only be about 75 taps.

[VTnewguy]

I have all Reds. I hooked up 85 taps/trees to vacuum this year and surprisingly pulled out about 15 gals/tap. I put 50 trees on buckets and only emptied them three times; probably averaged 3 gals/tap. I'm sold on using vac. for Reds.

Do you know what the average sugar content ran?

[mspina14]

Tapped 79 red maples this year on vacuum for the 1st time.

Some are in dry soil, some wet.

it was my first year installing vacuum. So spent about 1/3 of the season with downtime chasing leaks and getting everything to work properly.

I collected about 400 gallons of sap and made about 5 gallons of syrup. Sugar content of the sap was between 0.9%-1.4%.

Makes a very red syrup:

Red syrup 2-25-17 - 3.jpg

Tastes delicious!

I was pleased with the results, even with the low sap volume. I only have red maples on my property. I have tried tapping them with buckets over the last 4 years or so with zero success. Had to get my sap from other sugar maples around town before this year.

I'm hoping to increase to 100 taps on the Reds next season. Hopefully, I'll be faster at finding leaks and get more sap.


Mark

[Russell Lampron]

Do you know what the average sugar content ran?

I have 720 taps on high vacuum. 90% of those are red maples the other 10% are sugars. I averaged 1.4% sugar for the season.