Flat Ground

[chuck240z]

I've got a 200' by 400' piece of property that is full of maples. I can easily get 200 taps in it, but its wet and hard to manover through. I'd like to put a 3/4 " mainline gravity line through it and tap off of 40 foot laterals, approximetly 20 taps each. The problem is, its completly flat. I was going to use 55 gallon barrels plumed together as the tank, so my fall on a 400 foot mainline will be about 3 feet, assuming i raise it to 5 foot (maybe 6) at the start and finish at 2 foot. Will that be enough drop? Any flat ground gravity bushes out there?

Obviously a vaccume system would be better, but i'm going to wait untill i get a perminate shack built.

[unc23win]

Well flatter ground is challenging. The important part is to make that mainline run at your desired slope and make it TIGHT. For sure I would run the mainline fist starting at the height needed to run into the barrels and make sure I like the slope and get it just as tight as possible.

I probably would use 3/4" and saddles so after the mainline is how you want it then start at one end putting in saddles to get to the trees you want to get. You might have to make some of your lateral lines higher than normal and if slope is an issue making your laterals shorter helps. Maybe you won't get all the trees maybe you will.

I know someone that had a flat area and the actually put a piece of pipe with on the end that they could put a funnel on and pour in sap from buckets. They get more sap and only have a few buckets to dump. Maybe a little more work but every little bit helps.

[red maples]

I am in a similar situation. and I tap mostly reds. Personally I wouldn't wait on a vacuum set up. I was gonna do that the first year got ahold of a bb2 and a hobby releaser and it saved my butt the first year.

With a flat section its hard to get a good slope to get a good natural vacuum if you plan on doing vacuum in the future the tubing set up is different and you will need to run you blue tubing differently. you will save time and money in the future by investing now. just build a quick little vac shack now and you can more than double the amount of sap you will get from the gravity. I can't stress enough of doing it right the first time!!!

Now this all comes form a few years experince.

this year I am putting in a dry line and another wet line to pick up another 80 taps. I only run about 1-1.5% slope. I will eventually re-run some of the other main lines into the wet line and hook up the dry boosters when I get to them. just wanna get the 80 on this year.

[firetech]

Chuck can you rotate your mainlines to the 200 wideth get more slope and more mainlines? We ran about 200 taps on reds last year 15-20 taps per run on 5/16 to a 55 gal drum. I feel I wasted alot of time and money on this wood lot as we never got good sap flow. But it was a hard year to make any perment descions other than to expand. Currently we are working on an 800 tap flat as a table top wood lot 70% reds 30% sugars. Lots of mainlines oversized conductors and 5/16 laterals at 50ft or less. We want nothing higher than 6foot. Starting 3 ft at the realeaser. Keep all your lines tight. good luck and please share your how it works at the end of the season.

[chuck240z]

Well, i spent my entire work day (ssshhhh) researching vacuume pumps and releasers. I'm think i might as well bite the bullett and go all the way! I'm running out of time though!!!!

Thanks for the input, i'll post my progress.

-Chuck-