Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[spud]

Sap ran till about 10:00 pm last night. I got 3000 gallons yesterday and still testing 1.2%. We had a good hard freeze last night. Today should be a gusher, and continue for three days.

Spud

[tcross]

took too long for the trees up here to thaw out yesterday. got less than 1/2 gpt. hopefully today is a better day. it's starting off 18 degrees warmer so there's hope.

[Andy VT]

About .6gpt here between Sunday (my 2 latest southern taps ran, tapped March 1 I think) and of course especially Monday (yesterday). Was definitely expecting more. If today is also light I'll be fully convinced I tapped too early and my taps have healed up too much.
But I'm just over 7gpt for sap now for the season. Maybe I'll still make 10, teaspoon by teaspoon!

[Mooneybc]

It did not run as hard for me yesterday either. About .5gpt. Hopefully today and the next few days it kicks up.

[DrTimPerkins]

Dr. Tim,
Reaming a tap hole won’t work, maybe one good run! My father would pull the spile and move over an inch and drill a new hole, we had a nine week season one time with that practice! That is a wrong practice also! ...

The sap yield gained from reaming, freshening, bumping, drilling deeper, drilling a 2nd hole, etc. are highly variable. Some years you may get a reasonable amount of additional sap. Some years you may get very little. What we do know however is that doing this makes a MUCH larger wound, often more than twice the volume of the original wound. We did an experiment where we tried to drill just an inch or two above the initial taphole, thinking it would remain within the initial wound. This still resulted in a much larger wound volume.

Regardless of that...those practices are not banned (except perhaps by organic certifying agencies). Your trees = your decision. But better to make an informed decision than an uninformed decision. We don't tell people they can't do it....but it is important to have the research so that folks understand the consequences of that and factor those in before doing it. Perhaps it is a practice that shouldn't be used regularly, but rather be reserved for otherwise disatrous seasons.

Mark...you should be happy to know that the term "bumping" entered the lexicology of maple. It is referred to on page 6-26 of the 3rd edition of the new maple manual. Congratulations

[DrTimPerkins]

It did not run as hard for me yesterday either. About .5gpt. Hopefully today and the next few days it kicks up.

Trees were very "cold-soaked." Takes some time for a big object (like a tree) to thaw out after being down in the teens or colder for an extended period. Air temperature might seem warm enough for the sap to run, but tree temperature is still really cold and the tree is frozen solid. They'll thaw out after a day or two of warm weather.

[spud]

Sap has run very well all day. I got 6000 gallons in the last two days. My sugar went up to 1.4% so I’m making big money now😁. Weather looks outstanding for the next two weeks. I hope to get another 30,000 gallons🤞🤞🙏.

Spud

[Andy VT]

OK, now we're getting somewhere! I'm now at 8.6 gallons sap per tap for the season to date. Two southerly taps have stopped flowing completely; haven't seen a drop since the deep freeze. The other 26 running well. The norways running better than all season, though still behind the sugars. If this is the end, at least I can call it a "below average" season and not a "really bad" season. And it may well not be over.

Thanks for the contributions to this thread everyone! Dr Tim, thanks for weighing in, I just learned more good stuff, especially the temperature effect. So it totally makes sense that Monday was a little light even though it got quite warm and sunny.

[spud]

Sap is running at 150 gph as of 5 am. Rain storm on its way but sap will continue to run. Looks like I’m getting 1+ gpt each day now. Pump is running at 27 now, but during the day if the sun comes out, it goes down to about 25. It’s a combination of tree gas and I have a 3hp pump running 3400 taps.

Spud

[tcross]

good sap run yesterday. not too sure how much i got, but when i started boiling last night it was coming in as fast as i could boil it off. based off syrup totals and sap sugar content i'd say around 1.5 gpt. Nitre has turned from the sludge type, to the big flakey type that sticks to the pan. 10 day forecast looks like perfect sap flow weather up this way.