vacuum & what it does to trees

[maple33]

Does vacumm shorten the life of a tree for taping ?? Vacuum presure tank, is it better than releaser system, on 600 taps or less ?? what size mainline is right to run and how many taps per 5/16 line is good on pressure tank style ?? Thanks again for your help !!!

[DrTimPerkins]

Does vacumm shorten the life of a tree for taping ?? Vacuum presure tank, is it better than releaser system, on 600 taps or less ?? what size mainline is right to run and how many taps per 5/16 line is good on pressure tank style ?? Thanks again for your help !!!

Get a copy of the 2006 edition of the North American Maple Producers Manual.

As far as vacuum affecting tree health....NO...it has no impact other than the amount of sap and sugar that can be extracted. As long as you use conservative tapping practices (don't tap really small trees) or put too many taps in a tree, it doesn't affect the tree health.

Either a zero tank or a releaser will work well if it is set up properly.

Catch-phrase these days is "strive for 5, no more than 10 taps per lateral line."

[maple33]

Thankyou...... I have been told so many different stories from friends that don't have vacuum, didn't know what to believe !! What size mainline do you recommend 3/4" main with 1/2" laterals or 1" main with 3/4" laterals ?? will have 200 to 275 taps on this run !!!

[Brent]

Try this food for thought

Fresh cut wood is 30 to 40% moisture by weight.

You do well to get 1/2 gallon of syrup per tap/tree. You need about 20 gallons to get that.
20 gallons x 8 lbs = 160 lbs you are removing from a tree that weighs how much ??

We're really not taking a very big percentage of the moisture in a tree.

[3rdgen.maple]

You should be fine with 3/4 mainline and 5/16 lats with that tap number. BUt if you expand higher in the future on the same main line start with 1 inch and I dont know of any other size of laterals other than 5/16 currently on the market. All the fittings and taps are made for 5/16 as well.

[DrTimPerkins]

Thankyou...... I have been told so many different stories from friends that don't have vacuum, didn't know what to believe !!

Sometimes those who don't have vacuum can dream up lots of reasons to justify not getting one.

Think of it this way....

You put an ANIMAL cell in a vacuum, bad things happen. The cells blow up like balloons to equalize the pressure, and eventually the cell membranes will rupture, killing the cells.

How are PLANTS different? First off, the vast majority of wood tissue is already dead, although it is still functional (for structure and transport of water/sap). Secondly, plant cells are surrounded by cell walls (animal cells are not)....like little rigid boxes. So if you take a balloon and put it inside a tight-fitting cardboard box, and put it in a vacuum, it CAN'T get bigger, because the box prevents it from expanding. So plant cells don't rupture when exposured to vacuum because they can't expand.

The thought that vacuum causes more damage is probably due to the common misconception that the "stained" area of the wood is where the sap comes from...so the thinking is that more sap must equal more damage. This is simply not the case. Sap exudation and staining are caused by two very different biological processes that have relatively little to do with one another. About the only thing they do have in common is that the sap tends to move up and down in trees and the stain is strongly oriented up and down. Both of these are due to the fact that the vessel elements (pipes of the tree that transport water and sap) are mainly oriented vertically. In reality, sap exudation (either vacuum or gravity) is due to a biophysical process and staining is due to the tree's wound response. Completely different things.

So if you pull strong vacuum on some trees and collect sap by gravity on others, and compare the staining column afterward, there is absolutely no difference.

Brent's example was good....but it is also key to remember that the amount of moisture in a tree during the sap flow season isn't static. The tree will take up water each time it refreezes, so we're not actually depleting the moisture content at all over the season (beyond what normally occurs). The only things we are doing by tapping are:
1. creating a small wound (which should easily heal over in a few yrs).
2. extracting a relatively small amount of sugar (1-3 lbs depending upon yield)
3. making a small portion of the wood (the "stained" area) non-functional in terms of sap/water movement.

The BIGGEST difference between vacuum and gravity is the amount of sugar we can extract and the fact that we can induce flow on days where the sap would not otherwise flow.