Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[randolphvt]

Because of covid I'm downsizing as a backyarder. I won't be seeing my friends and family anytime soon. Mailing it is just too expensive.
I'll probably only make 4-5gal this year.

[OrangeAgain]

I'm thinking of tapping a few hundred trees this season and would love to know when I should plan on tapping? I'll be using the blue bag system on each tree.

I'll be selling the sap. What is the expected price for sap?

[VTnewguy]

Replacing all our 3/16 line to a more traditional mainline and 5/16 install. Almost done with that then to the sugar house to finish installing the new evaporator. Time is to short!

[ecp]

I'm thinking of tapping a few hundred trees this season and would love to know when I should plan on tapping? I'll be using the blue bag system on each tree.

I'll be selling the sap. What is the expected price for sap?

Price for sap is a little hard to predict because it would depend on the seller and buyer. If i were putting a couple hundred bags out id wait until sap was already running.

[ADK_XJ]

Replacing all our 3/16 line to a more traditional mainline and 5/16 install. Almost done with that then to the sugar house to finish installing the new evaporator. Time is to short!

I'm curious why you are changing back to 5/16? Did you find the 3/16 got gunked up or lost productivity? I've heard that from other, large producers near us here in NY.

[VTnewguy]

There was a decline in productivity the last couple of years. When we first started it was all on gravity and the sugarbush is nice and steep. As we went along and started adding vacuum the 5/16 seemed the way to go. 3/16 works for sure, and I wouldn't hesitate to put more out. Just need to realistic on it's expectations. Couple hundred taps probably no problem, bigger than that, I would look at different methods.

[HowsItRunning]

My trees are combined with my neighbor's who has a much larger operation, so I only help with gathering 300 buckets, or so. At the end of last year, I was thinking of other things I could do since I'm not involved with the boiling, so I decided to create a website. We all enjoy going out to the buckets throughout the day and seeing how the sap is running, so I decided to automate the process and put the data on a website. There are several different web pages that will show the sap flow in real time throughout the season. I will also add daily sugar content measurements, and the details of each gather and boil. Anyone interested can follow along at www.howsitrunning.com, any comments on the site would also be appreciated...

[DrTimPerkins]

Anyone interested can follow along at www.howsitrunning.com, any comments on the site would also be appreciated...

Interesting website. Tim Wilmot (retired UVM PMRC/Extension) had a real-time maple temperature/pressure/flow system set up for about a decade at PMRC called TREEMET. We used it internally to know when the sap was running but realized that a lot of people were watching it after it went down one day and our phone started ringing with people asking when it would be back up.

It is no longer active, but you can see it on the internet archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/20101213...M=cammenu.html (note that this is an archive, basically a snapshot of that site as it appeared back then, so most of the links will no longer work since the website has been updated many times since). Keep in mind that this was 10-15+ yrs ago, and the site was about 300 ft out in the woods. We had to run a fiber optic cable out to it. The sensors worked great and a lot of data was generated, and a few papers came out of it. The internet connection at PMRC was (and still is) bad a good deal of the time, especially (you guessed it) in the springtime (wet, freeze/thaw).

We still do a lot of the same type of thing, but more on vacuum now -- monitoring flow, pressures, temperatures within the tree. Most of it isn't public though as that just adds a layer of complexity to the whole thing. I'd upload some images, but still can't seem to do that.

In any case, the folks at Cornell reinvented the wheel this past year, and we may have the same system running this year. Not sure whether it'll be public yet, but once we get the bugs worked out (this year or next) the plan is to put it out there.

[GeneralStark]

It has been a busy fall and early winter here with some improvements to the sugarhouse and a new pump shed that has enabled me to lower all my mainlines to get better slope to my electric releaser. This has been on top of a very busy holiday sales season and some other improvements including working on a new website. Lots of repairs had to be done in woods this fall/winter with more than usual damage to mainlines. I now have the major repairs and drop changing done and am going to start chipping away at tapping this week. I've been on snowshoes in the woods since the MLK weekend storm but now they're essential with about a 2'+ snowpack in the woods here currently.

[VTfarmboy]

hurried and got in early this week, it takes 3 full days to get tapped and sugar house set up (500 3/16 gravity), valentines day is our ave tap date, picked .5 gpt last evening testing 1.75