Quote Originally Posted by Syrup By The Sea View Post
Thanks again MikeC82. You were right. After 2 days of above zero temps,the sap continued flowing and I ended up getting over 200L from my 50 taps. They were still running when I went to check them on the weekend, but pretty slowly after the 3rd day in the pluses. Not a bad haul for the area that I'm in. I think the sap is only averaging 1.5-2% though, as I only ended up with a gallon of finished after my boil. LOTS of boiling.

Hoping to get one more in before my reds start to bud out.

I'll try to stay away from the 8 inchers next year BIG_EDDY. They are everywhere, but I'll need to be more patient and let them grow...

Glad it worked out for you Syrup by the Sea! Like you, I don't have a lot of sugar maples. Mostly Reds - and they run and run when they start - especially the ones in lower areas. We got like 35 mm of rain here on the weekend and all my low areas are flooded and those trees just took off. For the smaller trees (9 inches is about where I draw the line) - I find the 5/16 taps are much easier on the tree compared to the larger metal composite ones. I've had smaller trees split a bit with the metal ones during really hard freezes. Not nice to see. The bigger trees take the metal ones fine and heal up well - at least in my limited experience.

This looks to be my week. Things really coming to life yesterday with that sun and some good freeze-thaws with warm days predicted. My only problem is the flooding and water everywhere. ATV goes through it fine - but I predict some wet socks over the coming days!

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