Pictures of 3/16" tubing in action

[BAP]

Here is some pictures of how my 3/16" tubing setup is running today. I have 4 lines with a total of 73 taps split among them. I have about 35-50 feet of elevation drop and they all feed into one 150 gallon tank. I took the pictures earlier this afternoon and was just out there gathering and all 4 lines are running full pipe. Pretty amazing to see it in action. I am extremely pleased with the performance of the 3/16". If you can't read the gauges they are 23.5", 22" and 2 @ 21".
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[Ghs57]

Very nice. I have 3 line, 59 taps on 3/16. The drop is between 20-50 feet or so. They were running nearly full bore yesterday, producing over 100 gals in about 24 hrs. The tank was overflowing twice before I got there to pump it out. I'm still adding taps (both 3/16 and 5/16), so we will see where all this will end up.

[peteinvermont]

Very nice. I have 3 line, 59 taps on 3/16. The drop is between 20-50 feet or so. They were running nearly full bore yesterday, producing over 100 gals in about 24 hrs. The tank was overflowing twice before I got there to pump it out. I'm still adding taps (both 3/16 and 5/16), so we will see where all this will end up.

1.69gpt - almost exactly what we got on our first experiment with 3/16. I put 28 taps on a single long run with most of the taps above 30'. The last 6 taps have 18ft drop into the tank. Then I have another line with 18 taps, almost the same elevation setup. 26" of pull, and 24hrs later we had about 75 gallons from 46 taps.

[DANNY-L]

We have 1800 on 3/16 but but only had mild runs so far. Had as high as 25" on 1 gauge but the others were around 16-20. Were suppose to have a warm up starting sunday so hopefully this stuff will run full bore. Couple weeks ago we had it warm up in the afternoon and stayed warm throughout the night and at daylight we had between 11-1200 gallons. We've been in a freeze for the past 5 days.

[BAP]

They were pulling 28" of vacuum today. Absolutely amazing.

[can'twaitforabigrun]

Over 23" of vacuum within half an hour of tapping and 27" by the end of the day. It's great to see it working after reading about everyone else's experiments with 3/16 tubing. Sugarbush for the 3/16 is located in the southern part of Renfrew County.

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[woodchuck]

Thank you for posting your 3/16 results. Your reports are mind boggling. We have a combination of buckets and 5/16 on vacuum. I have always felt that my best trees are in a draw that is at the back of our wood lot. Its too far away for the vacuum and too steep for carrying buckets. I will try 3/16 there next season. I can reach the bottom of the draw with the tractor so the pick-up seems OK. The overall drop is 150’ in a 1/2 mile.
My question: Do you connect your trees like a typical lateral? Dixie chaining each tree along a single long 3/16 lateral? or can create clusters of trees then connecting to the lateral?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Chuck

[motowbrowne]

Thank you for posting your 3/16 results. Your reports are mind boggling. We have a combination of buckets and 5/16 on vacuum. I have always felt that my best trees are in a draw that is at the back of our wood lot. Its too far away for the vacuum and too steep for carrying buckets. I will try 3/16 there next season. I can reach the bottom of the draw with the tractor so the pick-up seems OK. The overall drop is 150’ in a 1/2 mile.
My question: Do you connect your trees like a typical lateral? Dixie chaining each tree along a single long 3/16 lateral? or can create clusters of trees then connecting to the lateral?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Chuck

My understanding is that they should all be on a single line with a maximum recommended number of 25 taps. So, no "clusters" feeding into the lateral line. Just run more lines up the hill if you need to tap more.

I just put 16 taps on one 600' 3/16" line today. They were the ONLY taps running in our woods. Next year I'm going from 300 buckets and 120 on 5/16 to 100 buckets and everything else on 3/16.

[Cedar Eater]

Thank you for posting your 3/16 results. Your reports are mind boggling. We have a combination of buckets and 5/16 on vacuum. I have always felt that my best trees are in a draw that is at the back of our wood lot. Its too far away for the vacuum and too steep for carrying buckets. I will try 3/16 there next season. I can reach the bottom of the draw with the tractor so the pick-up seems OK. The overall drop is 150’ in a 1/2 mile.
My question: Do you connect your trees like a typical lateral? Dixie chaining each tree along a single long 3/16 lateral? or can create clusters of trees then connecting to the lateral?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Chuck

I've never done 5/16" laterals so I can't address them. I only became interested in tubing because of the possibility of natural vacuum boosting my sap production. I was advised to basically pick a top tree and then zigzag around picking up other trees while maintaining a downward slope on the line until the next obvious move was a straight shot down to a collection point. I don't see why you can't bring two or more clusters of trees together as long as you keep the tap count low enough, but maybe a cluster that pours a lot of sap into the line will slow the production of another cluster by decreasing the vacuum on it. As long as you have enough trees to fill the tube with sap and enough drop in elevation, I would think that sap production would be maximized with more lines and fewer taps per line. I have one run that's only four large trees with about a 30' drop from the top tree to the collection point and it really performs well, giving about 2 gallons per tap per day for the past 5 days.

[maple flats]

Mine are working great and I started at the top, end tree then zig zagged back and forth along a relative flat to get my count, then I wend down hill, 25-30'+ drop to my main. I have up to 35 taps on each lateral. With 3/16 a long lateral is not an issue but you need the drop in elevation.