Western Mass 2019

[Thegreg20]

Thinking about tapping in Franklin county Saturday so that I can get every drop for the start of Sunday's warm spell. 3 straight days in the 40's and the rest in mid 30's. Crossing my fingers on no more arctic blast. It's early but I'm going crazy waiting

[fred]

Jumping the gun is a good way to make less syrup

[Thegreg20]

Flowing good today, needed those extra freezing temps where it didn't flow for 3 days. My sugar jumped to 2.5% from 1.4%. Can't wait till I own some actual land with sugar maples on them. Second year sugaring to get the process down till I move. My yards like a small scale experiment testing different methods, tapping times, line sizes, etc. I used 5/16 last year and switched to 3/16 with probably a 3 ft drop total to test the theory that 3/16 shouldn't be used. I sustain 21in on shurflo pump and my output has increased. Even have some taps with looped lines at messed up angles just to see if it would flow good and even those are sucking sap good. Wish I had more trees to do multiple experiments. I'm addicted to the methods of madness as I am to making it.

[GV2]

Hung 16 buckets for starters. A few running slow. Looks like maybe 4 day window before a long cold snap. If buckets look good midday tomorrow will put out more taps maybe on a 3/16 line.

[berkshires]

Good luck guys! It definitely looks like now's the time to start. If I could I'd have tapped on Weds, but I'm going to have to wait until March. Though it does look like there's a cold snap coming. Hope it doesn't last long.

[berkshires]

Just checked, looks like after this run, it's supposed to be cold at least through the first full week in March. Bummer. On the other hand, it's not like they've never been wrong before.

[bigschuss]

I'm at 2,000 ft. about 45 minutes west of you and my average date of first tapping is the 1st week of March. I wouldn't think of chasing warm spells and hoping for no arctic blasts. Remember last March? We got 3 major Nor-easters and temps. plummeted.

[berkshires]

I jumped the gun last year in Chester. Tapped on January 20. Wound up with half the sap per day that I've gotten previously. Not to mention all kinds of issues dealing with frozen sap. Bad decision on my part.

I'm at only 800 feet, but I still won't be tapping before late Feb at the earliest this year.

[bill m]

Last year we finished tapping about Feb. 22 ,made our first syrup on the 24th and made over 1/3 of a gallon per tap without vacuum. I'm going to wait another week and watch the weather. Not to worried about missing much this early.

[Thegreg20]

I run vacuum at an elevation of 570 ft. Looking at the projected temperatures for Feb. and march if I tap early I should have 8 days of sap leading up to Feb 21st when temps are looking more consistently warmer. Last year I tapped Feb 5th and didn't start off with good flow till I switched to vacuum (night and day difference). By April I was having a hard time keeping my sap cold enough working 14hrs a day so April was a wash. If I ran buckets I definitely wait being the avg tap life is 4 weeks, vacuum 6+. My early syrup was my best. Nice and golden. My fear of starting later is April will be a wash again but I'll try waiting approx till the 21st