Eastern Ontario 2020

[Galena]

GAAAAAHHHHHHHHH....was all set to pull spiles today. This morning the spiles were barely damp on 7 of the trees. I pulled Surprise 3 off the line.

But when I was out doing yardwork in the vicinity of 1 and 2, guess what I heard....that telltale plink! plink! plink!....just collected 15l more good sap (ok some a little cloudy but I tasted it, it's still good). Guess my trees aren't quite done yet. Guess what I'm doing tonight?

[Ghs57]

GAAAAAHHHHHHHHH....was all set to pull spiles today. This morning the spiles were barely damp on 7 of the trees. I pulled Surprise 3 off the line.

But when I was out doing yardwork in the vicinity of 1 and 2, guess what I heard....that telltale plink! plink! plink!....just collected 15l more good sap (ok some a little cloudy but I tasted it, it's still good). Guess my trees aren't quite done yet. Guess what I'm doing tonight?

I'm quite a bit further south than you, but while pulling taps the past few days, it's pretty clear that the trees don't know it's over. I actually think the sap was OK, but we are well past peak and the quantity was pretty low. Well, we will be back next year, bigger and better than ever. (Had an average season this year)

[Galena]

I'm quite a bit further south than you, but while pulling taps the past few days, it's pretty clear that the trees don't know it's over. I actually think the sap was OK, but we are well past peak and the quantity was pretty low. Well, we will be back next year, bigger and better than ever. (Had an average season this year)

Yeah I always tell people that the trees don't read the books on sugaring....no different than horses not reading the various books of horse trainers and knowing what they're *supposed* to do. There's always at least a few that break the mold!

Ok today now the few drips of sap I've seen are starting to look cloudy and some pails have more baby mosquitoes than anything else. Still will wait til around 5pm. Just.
in.case.

[ennismaple]

We pushed through one last GPT of sap on Saturday. The sugar was down again so the RO did the heavy lifting. Made some Very Dark to start the day and some low Dark for the rest of the day. We might have been able to stretch it to another day but all the signs indicated we were done.

We couldn't be happier with the new RO this year. It consistently pushed through up to 1000 GPH of sap and would give us concentrate anywhere between 15 and 19.5 Brix depending on the incoming sap and how we dialed up or down the flows. We ended up making a whopping 235 gallons of finished syrup per chord of wood! I'll need to figure out what to do with the rest of my time I won't be spending cutting and splitting evaporator wood! We should have gone to the 3rd tower years ago.

Yesterday we got the evaporator drained and flooded with sap, the RO partly apart and about 1800 taps pulled. I'll pick away at the rest of the taps this week. And then I sleep...

[paulslund]

We pushed through one last GPT of sap on Saturday. The sugar was down again so the RO did the heavy lifting. Made some Very Dark to start the day and some low Dark for the rest of the day. We might have been able to stretch it to another day but all the signs indicated we were done.

We couldn't be happier with the new RO this year. It consistently pushed through up to 1000 GPH of sap and would give us concentrate anywhere between 15 and 19.5 Brix depending on the incoming sap and how we dialed up or down the flows. We ended up making a whopping 235 gallons of finished syrup per chord of wood! I'll need to figure out what to do with the rest of my time I won't be spending cutting and splitting evaporator wood! We should have gone to the 3rd tower years ago.

Yesterday we got the evaporator drained and flooded with sap, the RO partly apart and about 1800 taps pulled. I'll pick away at the rest of the taps this week. And then I sleep...

Wow! If I recall you had set aside 10 chords of wood for the season..did you get through all the wood? Does that mean you made about 2,350 gallons of syrup (US or Imp?). Is that an average season or a better than average season for you?

[ennismaple]

Paulslund - we had over 15 chord cut and split but we obviously didn't need it all!

We don't advertise how much syrup we made because people tend to multiply that times the retail price of a 4L jug and assume that's what we make for revenue. I will say it was our best ever year in terms of GPT and total production. Less than 20% of what we made was dark or very dark.

We already have plans to make things better for next year. We need to get our electric releaser plumbed and about 4500 feet of 1.5" line installed to allow us to pump all but 1000 taps directly back to the sugar camp. That will make life so much easier when we don't have to gather all that sap every day. We'll still have 2 tanks that need to be gathered each day but they are close to the camp and easy driving. Some days it takes a dozen or more trips to get all the sap collected and that wears you out!

[paulslund]

Ah I understand. I'm glad to see you had a record year! You guys sure work hard enough for it!

[DrTimPerkins]

I will say it was our best ever year in terms of GPT and total production.

Congratulations!

We're hoping to do a sap pump line this summer also for the same reasons. Takes one guy half the day or more just to truck sap around.

[ennismaple]

Congratulations!

We're hoping to do a sap pump line this summer also for the same reasons. Takes one guy half the day or more just to truck sap around.

Thanks Dr Tim. We've come to realize that as we improve our tubing, improve our vacuum and do better with leak patrol that the great seasons happen more often. If I can control those factors the weather has less of an impact than I thought 10 years ago.

[DrTimPerkins]

If I can control those factors the weather has less of an impact than I thought 10 years ago.

I agree. If we look at the UVM PMRC production records for the past 18 yrs (below), there is relatively little fluctuation from year to year. The trend line (solid black) is about as flat as it could be. Even 2012 (point 9 in this figure), which was a terrible year, is just a small downward blip. In most cases, the small peaks and dips are due to some factor that we know of quite well (pump failure, line freezing under road, freaking squirrels, new vacuum pump so better CFM, a bunch of new taps so great sanitation there, etc.) Moreover...we CAN'T control the weather, so there is no point in worrying about it. What is more important are the problems that crop up -- just a few issues over a couple of days during the season make a huge difference.

UVM PMRC 2004-2020 Production.JPG

Weather - Trees - Vacuum - Sanitation - NO ERRORS