Sap Flow Issues - Need Advice! (With Picture)

[VanVelsorBrothers]

Hi Everyone!

My brothers and I have tapped a section of my in-laws property for a few years now and we've always had good luck with it up until last season. To give you some background on it, we are in the southern part of New Hampshire and this stand of maples is on a hill that slopes down to a point where we pickup the sap by a road. The hill does face the North which is obviously not ideal, but it has never been too much of an issue in the past. We just know that if it's real cold, it'll take a bit before those trees come around to running.

The line setup is roughly drawn and described in the picture below.

16648

Now my father in law says he never ran mainline in this section and instead ran it all on 5/16" right to the tank and got twice what we have ever gotten out of the trees. My brothers and I grew up with mainline setups, but there were also vacuum systems on those so maybe that's the issue.

What happened was last year we got a quarter of what we usually do out of those trees and it couldn't be only because of the weather. We constantly had clogs in the line and there were days when the trees would run but the main line would hardly put out a steady drip.

We're considering a few things this year but we really could use some outside advice.

1) Go to all 5/16". We could tie a 5/16" line along the side of the mainline and run everything into it and ignore the mainline altogether. Supposedly this always gave him the best results as it created more of a vacuum for him. At the same time, I can't see running 200+ taps on essentially one length of 5/16" being good at all.

2) Explore the new, smaller diameter lines. I understand they're creating more vacuum that way but again there isn't much of a slope and I'm afraid of running too much on too small a line.

3) For every line that comes down the hill to the mainline, run it from there in it's own 5/16" all the way to the tank. That seems very expensive though...

4) Look into a vacuum setup. This would be interesting but probably not possible. I don't think we're all in favor of the added expense for one. Two, there's no power source and very little sunlight at the tank. And three, my father in law isn't in favor of a vacuum as he never ran one and doesn't think we have to and obviously it's his property we're using.

ANY advice would be awesome at this point. We're hoping to add onto our sugar house and increase the evaporator size soon, so getting all our taps run correctly is a priority.

Thank you!

Wes


Van Velsor Brothers Sugar House
Langdon, NH

2015 - 190 Taps - 24 Gallons
2016 - 225 Taps - 23 Gallons
2017 - 250 Taps - 19 Gallons

[mol1jb]

If it worked good until last season was there anything that you changed? The clogs were from ice or growth in the line? From what you have described I feel 3/16 would not work well on such a marginal slope.

[VanVelsorBrothers]

We didn't change anything so we blamed ourselves some for not cleaning as thoroughly as we should have.

Overall though, we are a little disappointed in the amount of sap we've picked up there every year. I know its not the ideal location but even our best pickups were about 100 gallons off of 200+ taps after 7 days of perfect 20°F nights and 40°F days. I think we were happy with it the first couple years because we didn't know what it should have been capable of probably.

I know he was probably embellishing it but my father in law claims he was picking up sap every couple days when he used to do it off the same number of trees. So I have come around to thinking that maybe the location isn't so bad after all and maybe our setup (even when it was clean and brand new) is just backing things up and not meeting its potential.

I think you're right on the 3/16 not being enough. I mean I was always taught not to overdo it on 5/16, so I can't see 3/16 handling too much.

Wes

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

I would stick with 5/16" unless you have some mechanical vacuum to work with 3/16". You can get away with a much cheaper vacuum setup to help 3/16" but the power source may be an issue. While it appears you have enough slope from point A to point B, there is not enough information to know how much pitch you have in the mainline. It should be a 1% minimum everywhere. You may have to angle that mainline uphill more..........and give up a few trees to do so but its better than freeze ups everywhere if that's what you feel the problem was. Last season sucked for a lot of us, we got about 50% normal crop without vacuum and we have a good south or westerly facing slopes.

[Super Sapper]

You have more than enough elevation drop to get some benefit from 3/16. I would run all 3/16 lines to the tank and limit them to 25 to 30 taps each. This alone will greatly increase your sap yield. By adding 2 shurflo pumps you should be able to maintain over 20 inches of vacuum and will add even more to your sap total. Put 1/2 of the lines on each pump and you should be good. You will easily get enough sap to offset 2 pumps and 4 deep cycle batteries.

[Biz]

If you go with a Shurflo pump or something similar, you might want to look into solar panels to keep the batteries charged up. Sounds like it is a remote location and swapping out heavy batteries isn't fun. Just pick up a solar panel and charge controller on ebay for less than $200 and connect it up to the battery according to the instructions. A I had a solar panel located about 250ft away from my pump which is in the woods, used ordinary AC extension cords that I already had (plus some adaptors) so I could locate the panel in sunlight.

I think 3/16 laterals to the mainline or separate 3/16 runs would work too, keep taps per line under about 35, this will get you natural vacuum and you can use the diaphragm pump to increase it further if you want. Whatever you choose, make sure you are able to get good vacuum at the taphole, otherwise you are missing out on sap. I am getting nearly max vacuum with my simple Shurflo setup on 3/16.

Dave

[Maple Man 85]

Last season was strange couple questions... when were the trees tapped? many people tapped very early because of the weather and some of them redrilled holes towards the end of season because of how long they were tapped. Something else is I see you have results from previous years 2015 ect are your taps/drop lines this old? Proctor has a great study on sanitation and sap flow effects. I'd recommend on new tubing the 1st season using a seasonal spout and then converting to check valve spouts so you don't see the potential contact of bacteria to the tap hole through aging lines. Another thing to look at is what others produced in the area with roughly the same setup as yours.

hope this helps!

[n8hutch]

What color are the main lines? If ice is an issue might consider black plastic pipe instead of blue, what kind of tapping bit are you using? New drops? Check valve spouts. Is plugging an issue in your lateral lines? In theory your father in law could have been achieving good vaccum with all 200 taps on one 5/16 line.

I run a guzzler by bosworth company on 12 volt battery's and I have to say that I will never run tubing w/o some kind of vaccum ever again, you do all the same work essentially in the woods and you put a pump on the end and get 2 maybe even 3 times the sap, it's a no brainier for me.

[amasonry]

VanVelsorBrothers













I have a north face bush. last year had 140 taps and processed 2017 gallons of raw sap. made 28 gallons of syrup. with a lot of wast 5+ gallons. a north facing bush is cold and I notice mine runs best on days over 45 degrees. any colder and by the time it thaws it's freezing again. I would pitch main lines no less than 2 or 3%. that way nothing will stay in the main lines. just something to compare too.

[maple maniac65]

2017÷28=72 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup. That is about 1.2 sugar content. Am I correct.

If I am my hat is off to you because that is alot of dedication to boiling.

[maple flats]

Last year for me was record low sugar. My season total was 1.25% sap, I usually average slightly over 2%. Last year mine never exceeded 1.8% and that was 1 day only. That being said, I got lots of sap, but if I had to boil straight sap I'd have quit far sooner than I did. My last collection and boil was 1%. I normally stop when it falls to under 1.7%. Had I done that in 2017 my season would have only been 3 days long, all sap after the 3rd day was under 1.7%. I got 1.8, 1.7, 1.7 ,1.6....it was soon at 1.4 and below.

[amaranth farm]

Radio Silence.

[amasonry]

you are correct. with a lot of wast . had to dump syrup pan a couple of times ,but made covers to fix that. my sugar content was a little higher . going to start testing each tree this year and weed out the low sugar trees. last year with 65 taps made 18 gallons. my north facing bush will run a week longer than people around me.

[scottshawley]

If there is any slope, 3/16 will be better than 5/16. You won't get the full vacuum that you would if you had 40' of drop but you will get some as compared to zero with 5/16. You can run your lines as long as you need and I have had the most success with 20-25 taps per line. Hope this helps! Good luck!


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