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Thread: Does sap go up and down early in the season?

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
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    Two Harbors, Minnesota
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    In addition to all the good information you've received there may be another tip. I'm not sure how much snow you have there but a good sign for me of when the trees are getting ready to run is when the snow melts away from the trunk of the tree. It tells me the tree is thawing out and getting ready to flow.
    2016- 32 taps, 3 1/2 gallons
    2017- 150 taps, 13 gallons after building an evaporator
    2018- goal is 240+ taps. 20+ gallons.
    2018 Reality- 235 taps, 5 gallons of syrup. Average 50 birch taps and 3 gallons of syrup.
    2019- 180 maple taps, 20 gallons of finished syrup.
    ~ 160 birch taps, 13 finished gallons of syrup.

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  2. #12
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    Jan 2011
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    Barnes WI
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    Quote Originally Posted by billschi View Post
    In addition to all the good information you've received there may be another tip. I'm not sure how much snow you have there but a good sign for me of when the trees are getting ready to run is when the snow melts away from the trunk of the tree. It tells me the tree is thawing out and getting ready to flow.
    I look for that same sign Bill.
    10th year in….
    100 sap sacks...Actually, I hope to never have to use them again!
    1000' feet of 3/16th on gravity (not sure how many taps yet)
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  3. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
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    Harvard, MA
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins View Post
    The transition from above freezing to below freezing creates a vacuum in the wood which induces water uptake. If the freeze happens too quickly, water uptake will be incomplete.

    During a warm spell if the trees are not tapped, there will be a pressure within the stem of the tree (proportional to the height of the tree above the point in question). This pressure develops naturally as a way for the tree to refill wood vessels that have cavitated (filled with air) during the winter. Vessels (pipes) that are filled with air don't work very well to transmit sap -- kind of like getting air into your plumbing at home....it reduces their functionality. The pressure serves to dissolve the gas into the liquid and "repair" the pipe to full functionality. Different tree species get rid of the air in different ways...maples do it by stem pressure. The sap does NOT go back into the soil...there is a structure in the roots (the 'endodermis') which prevents this from happening. Some of the water in the branches may transpire (evaporate out) through the bark, but this is only a relatively minor amount.
    Hi Dr Tim,

    I wondered if there are any ways to predict how long the trees will run sap during an extended warm
    spell, like we have in central MA the last few days. It hasn’t been below freezing since Sunday I think, and sap still ran well in some trees yesterday. Today and tomorrow are still above freezing at night. Can trees keep running that long without a re freeze? I’m trying to forecast how much boiling I’ll be doing the rest of this week. Thank you.
    2022 is season 7
    2016: 20 taps on buckets, 4 gallons on a borrowed 2x3.
    2017: 32 taps on buckets, 8 gallons of syrup, on a "loaner" Lapierre 19x48.
    2018: 80 taps. First time tubing. New 10x12 sugar shack, Lapierre 2x5. Made 17 gallons
    2019: 100 taps. 22 gallons. Added a small RO 50 gph.
    2020: 145 taps, 30 gallons, sold half. Murphy cup is a great addition.
    2021: tapped Feb 23, 150 taps, 35 gallons.
    2022: 200 taps. I lost 50, added 100. Having fun but short season?

  4. #14
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    UVM Proctor Maple Research Center, Underhill Ctr, VT
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    Quote Originally Posted by tgormley358 View Post
    I wondered if there are any ways to predict how long the trees will run sap during an extended warm spell, like we have in central MA the last few days.
    Not to any great degree. Keep in mind that trees are not simple pipes (although we sometimes use that analogy in explaining some things). Instead, they are collections of many thousands of individual pipes. In the early part of the season some of those pipes thaw out (those on the south side usually) well before the pipes on the north side thaw out. Under those conditions, sap can keep running (slow to weeping flows) from a tree for many days without a freeze/recharge happening. How long a tree will continue to run depends upon the size of the tree, the time of season, the weather conditions for a few days before the flow, the weather conditions during the flow, and whether or not you are on vacuum. With good enough vacuum, you can actually pull water from the soil, up through the roots, through the stem, and out of the taphole (which is how the "sapling" method works). The sap sugar content during this time will drop continuously until a freeze however....the difference is that without vacuum you'll likely get no sap (and thus no sugar) from those trees.

    Short answer = no, not with any amount of certainty.
    Dr. Tim Perkins
    UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
    http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
    https://mapleresearch.org
    Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu

  5. #15
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    Jul 2021
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    Parry Sound Area, Ontario
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    Quote Originally Posted by billschi View Post
    In addition to all the good information you've received there may be another tip. I'm not sure how much snow you have there but a good sign for me of when the trees are getting ready to run is when the snow melts away from the trunk of the tree. It tells me the tree is thawing out and getting ready to flow.
    Attached are three photos, that my guess it would be time to tap. (I plan to use SapTapApp to help me decide when as well. The first is March 24, 2021, March 26, 2020 (I was still ice fishing then) and April 17, 2019.
    2341E137-70B7-4225-9AE9-A4B076A57529.jpg
    D023E3D5-CA5A-42BA-97A6-5165FBE1C196.jpg
    BD33A738-17A1-466E-AAC9-9A4E505B9921.jpg

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