Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[spud]

I look forward to reading the results on tapping below the lateral lines. I had asked Dr. Tim about this a few years back and he said they were doing a study on it. This season I tapped over 1000 trees below the lateral lines. Some were 12-16 inches below. I had a record season for GPT this year. My overall production was .4+ for the season but that is great for me and my smaller trees. My sugar average for the season was just 1.5%. Had it been 2% like some sugar makers I would have had a .54 GPT season. I feel I'm doing as well as I can with the trees I have to work with. All 1000+ trees I tapped below the lateral line was with CV2 spouts.

Spud

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

Good information spud, thanks for sharing. We didn't tap any below this year but I am tempted to try it. We don't use the CV2's, just CDL smartspouts. Hoping I can make it down to Bascom's open house next weekend and get to Dr. Tim's presentations.

[maplecherry]

2000 taps on laterals set up for tapping with 3' of snow in mind. No snow this year = 75% ? tapped below the lateral. (often the length of the drop). 26 GPT on sap this year and stopped a few days early to go to work. Higher than avg year for sugar content ended up @ .61 GPT on syrup. I am mainly a sap seller and produce just a little syrup. 3rd year on the tubing and battled a leak at the pump house that caused a lot of ice issues this year.

[sjdoyon]

Received a few private messages on how we did. Well, as of yesterday, still boiling. I had to take an assignment to Miami, FL so the family is handling the operation. NEK received several inches of snow yesterday so sap will prob flow into the weekend. Total numbers will be high but not in Dr. Perkin's territory.

[WestfordSugarworks]

Good luck, sjdoyon. Let us know when you wrap up.

[WestfordSugarworks]

Got numbers from the guy who buys our sap from our big sugarbush. Off of 9900 taps he picked up 341,000 gallons of sap which came to be 5791.1 gallons of syrup. 0.585 gal syrup per tap. I'm hoping that bush can do better in a higher sugar content year. I don't have any totals for our Westford bush where we have 2500 taps and buy some sap and boil it ourselves.

[rhwells2003]

I was paid for this years sap this weekend, and like my season, there were up and downs. Last year I was all gravity, and off of 350 taps I produced 2000 gal, and all season long I was between 2-3%. This year I made the jump to vac, and produced more then 4 times the sap. I ended the year with 8,850 gallons, but my sugar content averaged 1.2%, with the last 3-4 pick-ups at the end of the season only being 0.6%! Needless to say I quadrupled my sap production but only doubled my money. Ouch

[spud]

That us a ton of sap for 9900 taps. What was you average suge for the season?

Spud

[spud]

Research has been done showing that sugar content will not drop under very high vacuum. I am convinced that sugar will drop under high vacuum. There are too many sugar makers proving this is the case. My neighbor set up a small woods this season and ran an old dairy pump at just 17 inches. His trees are just feet from mine and of the same size. His sugar average for the season was 2.1% and mine was 1.5% on 27+ inches of vacuum. Are set ups are the same with three taps per lateral line. High vacuum does help to increase production but if you can double or triple your gallons of sap don't expect to do the same with syrup.

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

Research has been done showing that sugar content will not drop under very high vacuum. I am convinced that sugar will drop under high vacuum.

Your characterization of the research is not quite correct. The devil is always in the details.

When the sap is running from both trees on vacuum and trees on gravity, sugar content will be roughly the same. After a few days though, the trees on gravity will stop running (= zero sugar), while the trees on vacuum will keep running, and eventually you will reach a time when the bulk flow sap movement is upward (from the soil, through the roots, up the stem and out the taphole). Without a freeze to stimulate the conversion of stored starch to sugar, the sugar in the roots and stem will slowly be diluted and sugar content will drop off. However again....the trees on gravity are producing NO sugar during this phase. Thus the sugar content is going to vary during the season according to the flow regime.

Altogether I guess I'm saying the research isn't wrong, but neither are you.