Annual tap hole placement

[Maple River Sugar]

Does anyone have distances to place the next years tap from the previous years? For instance over 4" up or down 6". I wonder what Dr. Tim's opinion is? Thanks

[30AcreWoods]

Dave Klish has a system that's pretty straightforward - I just looked quickly but couldn't locate his post, so hopefully he will chime in! It depends on whether you are on high vacuum or not. Looks like you are on buckets/no vac., so it is a bit less of an issue from year-to-year.

[ecolbeck]

I seem to recall that for buckets it is 2” over and 6” up or down from previous tap hole.

[Big_Eddy]

The stain column is tall and narrow. For a 5/16" spile the column can be as narrow as an inch total, but often 24" tall. Bigger hole, wider stain column.
Excellent photos at this link. https://onmaplesyrup.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/ontario-maple-syrup-production-report-march-8-2019/
There was a more detailed article on the same site a few years earlier.
FOUND IT https://onmaplesyrup.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/maple-sap-is-flowing-briefly/

The idea is that by the time you get around the tree, the previous tap hole is deep enough within the tree that you don't hit a stain column with the new hole.
For a 12" dia tree, diameter is 36". If you move 2" each year, then it will take 18 years to get all the way around the tree.
A young healthy tree growing vigorously can have growth rings of up to 1/8". After 18 years, there is 2 1/4" of new wood over the original hole.

For a 24" tree, if you move over 3" each year, it will take 24 years to go around the tree. Even if the tree is only adding 1/8" diameter annually (1/16" growth rings) you will still have 1 1/2" new wood over the old hole.

We typically go 3" on larger trees, 2" on smaller, always to the right and anywhere vertically.

(Posted the same on the tap too close thread)