Is it mothr nature?

[325abn]

Or is it me?

I collected yesturday and all of my sap came from my buckets with 7/16 spiles.

Amongst the buckets I have runs of 23 taps, 9 taps and 13 taps on 5/16 tubing with 5/16 health spouts running into 2 totes with the 23 tap run into a 55gal drum.

I did not collect one drop of sap from any of these tubing runs! These runs are in the same area some within feet of buckets that where overflowing.

Is it common for tubing to shut down while the buckets keep running? Am I missing somthing here? What could have happened to make the tubing runs to turn off?

Any ideas?

[802maple]

It goes back to what I said in another thread. In Canada they have done studies that with out vacuum the small spouts do not run as well as the 7/16ths

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

I have always thought that metal spouts run better and quicker than plastic.
RICH
CAPAC MI

[maple flats]

I have had somewhat similar results but the tubing is still flowing just that the 5/16 cast leader bucket spouts are running better. I boiled them in water for 15-20 minutes before use but that was over 5 weeks ago, the health spouts were sanitised in hydrogen peroxide before use. Now I am getting about 2.5 gal avg on buckets/day and about 1 gal/day on tubing over the last 2 days.

[Dave Y]

Buckets will out perform gravity tubing every time!

[tuckermtn]

I have been having similar yields as Maple flats with the cast Leader 5/16 spouts. About 1/2 of my buckets have stopped dripping (were drilled Feb. 27th) but the rest are going like great guns...sometimes 2.5- 3.5 gal per tap per 24 hrs. My sugarbush trees are closer to .5 to .75 per gallon on my best runs...and thats with a sapsucker pulling just a little (5") of Hg. We boiled the cast taps and used the leader sanitizing extensions on or 5/16 tubing taps. go figure...

[tapper]

Hmmmmmm? none of my buckets are performing well at all. Over 100 of them on 5/16 leaders spouts. But, I have 1 tree sitting on the top edge of a 20 foot verticle drop with tubing into a 5 gal. bucket and that bucket is FULL. This syrup business is strange medicine. I guess thats what keeps us all interested in it.