Maple Syrup: Season 2. For Sale and B.S. thread

Oh my

 

Gonna be double this year

 

The price of this stuff has gone through the roof. When I was a kid we could buy a tap,bucket,and top for about $7. Now a set up like what we have is around $20 per hole drilled. We have enough to run about 300 taps but only do 150 as of now. Lucky for us we bought all of our equipment as a package deal from a friend for about half retail. I guess those years of helping him out really paid off.

 

So is there any benefit/harm from removing the sap from the trees? I'm sure you may have answered this in Season 1. How much can you remove before the tree can be affected by it?

 

There is no harm for a healthy tree that is considered big and mature enough to tap. We will tap 1 hole in trees 12" diameter, 2 in 24"+ and 3 in 36"+. That 7/16" hole is a drop in the bucket, pun intended, compared to the 2-10 foot circumference of the tree.
If a tree looks unhealthy such as large dead limbs, rot, poor leaf canopy, we won't tap them at all but that's just us, many people tap no matter what. We do check all of our trees during the summer to be sure they are doing well and have all their leaves. I'm not sure how much sap flows from the roots to the buds/leaves every spring but my guess is thousands of gallons. Each tap ranges from giving 10 to maybe 50 gallons of sap per year.

 

Good info! Thanks Pudge.

 

There isn't a whole lot known about sap flow, despite multiple studies. We seem to learn a little more every year.
Something intersting is the "freeze/thaw cycle". I'm sure many of you read my posts about it being too warm so the sap flow is slow, and needing cold nights to help the flow, this makes little sense to many.
What you want is night a below freezing, around 25° is best, then sunny days above 40°. In the tree there is water, gas, sucrose and other nutrients. Water flows from the roots to the top, picking up sucrose which is stored in the woods of the tree. The tree needs this nutrients for energy to form buds to sprout leaves for photosynthesis. When the sap freezes it forms ice crystals in the tree, which causes expansion and negative pressure, then it thaws in the sun and warm weather the next day causing shrinking and positive pressure. Some studies have measure 13 psi of pressure pushing out of a tap hole, this is from sap and gasses in the tree escaping. If the tree doesn't freeze and thaw almost daily the sap isn't under pressure to be pushed up the tree and therefore doesn't flow out of the hole we drill.

 

Next post is boorrrrrring lol

 

This is good. Was wondering why in warmer days sap didn't flow. I would have thought warmer would me "watery" sap and flow faster. So this makes sense.

 

Here's an example of the sap dripping. This is about average on a good day. Some days it's almost a constant drip, with only some air between drops which is actually gas from the tree escaping. These are the days that a single tap will fill a 3 or 4 gallon bucket in one day.

 

Is the GIF showing up in the above post? I don't see it now. I notice this often when I'm on my phone here. No gifs.

 

Yep I see it.

 

Power is holding strong here. Kind of surprised with all this wind. I have my fingers crossed. Hope you stay safe Steve and Mrs Steve !

 

Be warm and safe bud.

 

I wonder why I can't see gifs here on my phone. Maybe I need to change a setting?

 

Can't wait for ST2 coming out in a month. Still one of my favorites of all time.

 

Depending on the size of the tree we put in 1, 2, or 3 taps. Some will go up to 4 but we don't. if we have multiple taps in a tree we put them at different heights, due to the theory that some sap flows horizontally or maybe in a spiral up the tree, we also space them at least a foot from each other and old tap holes.
And no harm to the trees, small trees (at least 12 inches across) get 1, medium get 2 and huge trees get 3. When I say huge i mean huge, like as wide as a car. We usually go one less per tree size than most people do just to be cautious

 

No worries man. This thread is too long and boring to read every post haha

 

I disagree... this is fascinating stuff... I told my wife just how many gallons of tree sap it's going to take to make this years order... that's a lot of sap & a lot of wood splitting to boil off that much water.

 

Sooooo.... Bottled up 20 gallons today. That's the good news. The bad news is I opened my box of quart jugs today and the place sent me the wrong ones, supposed to say Connecticut and I got Maine. That's not gonna work. I'll call them tomorrow to straighten it out. Should be back on track in a few days.

 

Gold Jacket, Green Jacket....who gives a shit

 

I’ll try some Maine syrup

 

I see a half gallon jug.....

 

Yes you do. Good eye.
One of the properties where we tap trees at buys his own 1/2 gallon and quart jugs, I'm not sure why. We trade him syrup for letting us tap his trees and he also buys some. everyone else we tap tree at just use our jugs.
I can probably get some of those from him. He has a huge box of them. Not sure if they'd fit in a flat rate box though

 

So no sap again today. Could be because it was cold but it did get up to 40ish, could also be due to the very warn weather last week. If it's the latter, the season may be over. The next few days will be very telling as to what is going on. I have my fingers crossed that we get a few hundred gallons by the weekend, if we do then we may get a few more weeks based on the long term forecast.

 

Well that's gonna create a bidding war for syrup on this forum

 

I just want to reiterate I got in at post #5. If the season is over I think I'm deserving of at least a cap full of syrup. I guess I could make one really small pancake and put it on that. Please let me know how much shipping is for 1/2oz to 08827.
Thanks

 

I never cared about what the weather was like in Connecticut until now. I am hoping its not the latter... I want some maple syrup!

 

The sap is flowing today!!!!!
I hope it's not a fluke or a tease but the trees are dripping pretty well. Big snow storm tomorrow a d some cold nights ahead should give us the freeze we needed. I have a feeling we've got a couple weeks of sugaring ahead of us. If I have to, this weekend, I can go ream out the holes a bit.