Rotating Drops

[backyardsugarer]

I have been reading all of the research on sap yield, check valves, seasonal taps, etc. It's clear the best road to more production is new drops because the T on the drop ends up contaminated with bacteria and yiest which ultimately works it's way to the tap hole. Why not rotate drops? The ones I take off this year could be soaked in bleach/water for a month or better then rinsed in water and installed next year and I could do the bleaching process on those.

I have also read that you never get rid of all the microbes with cleaning that get inbedded in the tap, tubing and T. I have a pretty good background in microbiology and I am certain that I can kill any/all bacteria and yeast in the drop to make it at least as clean as new tubing and taps.

Does anyone have any experience with this or have you heard of others doing this?

Thanks

Chris

[maple flats]

You have a very hard time removing the old tubing from the barbs on the tee. You will create leaks. Besides, you can never get all of the micro organisims out of plastic, it gets into the pores in the plastic (yes, plastic is full of pours.)
I think you are better off using new spouts every year (CV1, CV2, Seasonal etc), and then change out to a NEW drop every 5 years.

[Sugarmaker]

I am trying new plastic spiles and drop lines only, on 200 of our 600 taps this year. I cut the drop off the tee with the standard fitting cutting tool and used Leader Max Flex for the 30 inch drop with Leader health spouts. Should be a interesting test. I have short run gravity systems. Hoping to see some improvement in quanity of sap and or length of open tap hole time. At this time I don't plan to change these each year. Most of these were 6 years old.
DR Tim Perkins should have all kinds of cleaning information on tubing for you too.
Regards,
Chris

[DrTimPerkins]

There is an article on frequency of replacing drops coming out in the next issue of The Maple Digest. Should be out within a week or two.