Bruce
Herd Master
Welcome @WildBird ! Do you know where you are relative to @thistlebloom ?
Around here the lines are left up year round, way too much time needed to run them all plus, if you have a big snow year, no way you could trudge through it to get all the lines set up before the trees start producing. Of course there is also work to make sure the squirrels haven't chewed the lines. Most serious producers up here now use vacuum to draw out the sap and reverse osmosis to remove a fair bit of the water from the sap before boiling.
If the trees are starting to get red on the new branch ends, the guy is way too late. Nasty flavor maple sap after they start that. Sugar season starts whenever the trees say it does. Historically it would be in March though has sometimes started in February. I THINK last year some people had a week or so in January before the trees went back to sleep. Pretty much need to have nights below freezing and days above freezing to get the "pump" running. Once it stays above freezing, the season is over.There is a guy here who taps about 15-25 trees that already has his lines out. I think he is way too far ahead, but he's a bit a of a know it all..... I haven't heard how things look in Highland County where all the serious sugar camps are. We had all that super warm weather too, and you can even see the little bit of a reddish tint on some of the trees where they were almost ready to start "spring"..... This week we have had night time temps in the teens and every thing has frozen pretty good.
Around here the lines are left up year round, way too much time needed to run them all plus, if you have a big snow year, no way you could trudge through it to get all the lines set up before the trees start producing. Of course there is also work to make sure the squirrels haven't chewed the lines. Most serious producers up here now use vacuum to draw out the sap and reverse osmosis to remove a fair bit of the water from the sap before boiling.