What to do when you hit brown wood?

[Alex Davies]

Okay, Last question... for now.

When tapping, and you tap into dead wood/ brown wood what do you do?

Put the tap in anyhow?
Plug the hole with a tap connected to a plug and tap in a different spot?
Leave hole open and tap into another spot?

Thanks.

[Russell Lampron]

There are some exceptions to the rule but I consider the tree to be a cull at that point and just drill another hole. Most of my trees are red maples and on some of the smaller ones drilling into red/brown wood happens on occasion. If the wood is more reddish than brown I'll leave the tap in and check to see if it leaks when the vacuum is on. If the wood is brown I look the tree over for dead limbs, skidder rash and other signs of poor health to determine if I just hit a bad spot or if I'm going to cull the tree. If I decide that it is a savable tree I plug the tap into the tee and move on. I don't do anything with the fresh hole that I'm not going to use. The tree will heal around it better than if the hole was plugged.

[blissville maples]

If it's all brown from right below the bark drill a new one, if it's just the last few spins of the bit then no big deal throw the tap in, check it for a leak when turn vacuum on.

[maple flats]

If you do as blissville suggests, it might give sap, or it could be a vacuum leak causing lower vacuum in the whole system or that part of the system. I just leave it, plug that tap off but not the taphole and go the the next tree if I hit brown wood.
Brown wood can be showing that you have drilled into a previous tap compartment, or it can be a dead area in the tree, usually from a wound. When the tree loses sap from one spot in the tree, regardless of what caused that leak, it's response is to close that immediate area permanently, that area will never again transport sap. Look up maple tree compartmentalization.

[maple flats]

A compartment from a tap is usually only 2-4" wide and can go from 2' to 3' below the taphole and above it. A major live limb breaking off can cause a much larger compartment, but it will not necessarily kill the tree. Maple trees have a tremendous ability to recover with a whole bunch of compartmentalized areas in the tree. If the brown wood was just from an old taphole, you just drilled too deep and not enough new wood had been added over that compartment.