Tapping Questions-Observations

[johnpma]

Installed my 5/16" tap lines, and buckets over the weekend.

Questions:

One tree I tapped was all brown wood coming out??? Dead? No sap? was the only tree that gave brown pulp on the drill

Buckets on a big old sugar maple. One side of the tree giving clear sap other side of the same tree giving yellow sap? Why?

Had to relocate one spout on a tree is it ok to just leave the original hole in the tree open? Had to re-drill a new hole

Trees ran nicely finished Sunday AM and had around 30 gallons plus of sap in the buckets and my large storage container

[maple flats]

Leave it open, nature will fill it in time unless the surface is also dead. I may just be an old compartment where the tree sealed off the area because it either had a tap or other injury, or maybe a portion of the tree is dead or dying.