Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[spud]

Sap ran well yesterday. I got 1 gpt but only testing 1.2%. I just shut the pump off this morning. Starting tomorrow, it looks like sap everyday for a while. I still have a few leaks to chase down but I am running 25 inches of vacuum.

Spud

[PARKER MAPLE]

You need to return the favor and feast on the squirrels. I hear they taste good if you use enough syrup on them.

I will stick to chicken 😂

[VT_K9]

We are all tapped in. Having some challenges this year with leaks. We have one pump with two releasers. One is a mechanical. The other we upgraded from mechanical to electric. When the vacuum is sent only to the releasers it is 26-27 (I stopped waiting and moved on to supplying the woods lines but I belive there was more to go as it was slowly increasing). When sent to the woods I started at the side which showed less vacuum throughout (we are using the CDL monitoring system and have sensors on the major mainlines). I shut one side (on the mechanical releaser) down to one mainline and began to walk it...found a heck of a chew by coyotes. Fixed it and that run and the other on that side seemed to retun to 26" with a slow climb so I moved to the other releaser (electric). I found one sensor about .5" less so I started there and found another big chew and whole drop gone.

Now the whole system is within .5" through all sensors. We have about 750 taps 1/3 to one releaser and 2/3 to the other releaser. The challenge is the vacuum does not get much over 22". As this evening rolls on and the temps drop I am seeing more fluctuations from sensor to sensor. I have three zones I plan to walk tomorrow. It seems like they are small leaks and are freezing first. It seems like they are out on the sap lines vs at the mainline except one run (which shows a 0" for the sensor).

What does everyone else have for thoughts about this? Am I looking at it from the right angle or am I missing something.

Thank you,

Mike

[spud]

It is possible your mechanical releaser is causing the vacuum to go down during dumps. I had a similar problem about 5 years ago when my pump was running two releasers.

Sap started running at about noon today. I have about 1400 gallons in the tank and it’s still running 200 gph. I think it will freeze up at around midnight. Sugar is now 1.4%.

Spud

[Mooneybc]

Last two days got about 2.5 gal sap/tap at 1.4%. I am sort of sketched out that we have 4 days in the next week at 58-60 degrees and no freezing.

[spud]

Last two day I got 1.5 gpt and testing at 1.6%. I’m still fighting with micro leaks. Hope to have higher vacuum by tomorrow. I need to start pruning 400 apple trees and cutting scion wood for spring grafting.

Spud

[PARKER MAPLE]

Sun piped out this morning around 8:30 and sap started to run pretty well. It just trickled in overnight but at least it didn’t stop lol. Now it’s cloudy and over cast and still running at 180/hour. Sugar is down to 1.8. Nothing like last year. This year is one that I scratch my head about. I’m not sure how we will make out. So far to date only 10k gallons of sap in last two weeks. Last yr we had 3500 a day. But a lots less snow pack. I’m holy snow how’s away a bit here and we get back into the freeze and thaw.
PM

[Mooneybc]

This last run 1.5gpt/sap at 1.2%

[tcross]

it's ran pretty good up here the last 3 days without a freeze. sugar has held at 2% as of last night. got a couple more warm days after tomorrow, but looks to be back to the normal weather for this time of the year after that. we still have snow in the woods (not alot) but nothing in the fields or in town. hopefully once the weather gets back to normal by the end of the week we'll get a few more weeks out of the season. time will tell

[spud]

Shut the pump off tonight. Temp down to 27 at 8 pm. Looks like we could get a gusher tomorrow starting at about 10-11am. Sap today was a bit cloudy and 1.5%. Hope to keep going till mid April.

Spud