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maxhinator123 t1_j2migqs wrote

Reply to comment by DrNism0 in It's so warm right now the sugar is flowing in Temple by musicals4life

I'm a maple producer. This actually ruins the season. Trees don't have unlimited sap. And at this time of year it's not viable to put taps in trees for most people, this is because the trees will freeze again and push the taps back out among other issues. So basically people like me just lost ~10% of their yield on top of the fact that thaws like this are detrimental to the health of a tree as all the sap that travels up the tree is going to refreeze now all the rest of winter

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slayermcb t1_j2mil14 wrote

That stink. Thank you for the insider knowledge.

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musicals4life OP t1_j2n747o wrote

It's my understanding that Ben uses a vacuum system on his trees so they shouldn't reject the taps later.

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maxhinator123 t1_j2n8cr7 wrote

Yes, I've visited his setup, the vacuum system does wonders! I'll invest in a vacuum system as well some day but man it's costly

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musicals4life OP t1_j2n9ou9 wrote

I'm slumming it with buckets and tubing on a propane burner haha. Project this year is to convert an old barrel into a proper evaporator/smoker. I would love to have money to invest in an RO system some day

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maxhinator123 t1_j2najus wrote

Oh man getting out of propane was the first thing I did. I made a home-made oil drum, restaurant pot style evaporator that worked okay. How many taps do you run? I'm actually getting a leader micro extreme ro to replace my diy 400gpd membranes

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musicals4life OP t1_j2ncuzj wrote

I have 20 maple taps and we made about a gallon of sap last year. I think we can do better this year if the weather cooperates

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maxhinator123 t1_j2oyjwo wrote

Oh good luck! I've got 700, shooting for 1000 this year

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musicals4life OP t1_j2oz44f wrote

Wow! That is a lot. I'm just tapping the dozen or so trees in my backyard. I gave away half of my syrup to friends last year bc we can't use that much. Majority of my syrup consumption is in my morning coffee.

How much syrup did you get from 700 taps last year?

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Shilo788 t1_j2n0x43 wrote

I was thinking that might not be good for the trees, if you don’t tap does the warm spells still harm them?

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