Mainline sizing

[GGervais]

I was at the Maple conferences in hyde parks this past weekend. It was very informative with a lot of new information on tubing with high vacuum systems. Glen Goodrich said with a wet\dry line that 1.25" wetline can handle 3500 taps. Does anyone know how many taps a 1" line can handle?
Gabe

[dano2840]

a 1 in dry i think he said 2000, that seems pretty steep to me, i wouldnt put more than a 1000 but i never dealt w/ a wet dry system

[GGervais]

that sounds about right. I couldn't remember what he had said. Good luck this season.

[maple flats]

Specs I saw say 3/4" 1000, and 1" 2000. I think this was with a 2% min grade on the wet dry line. There was also something about max lengths but I did not record those because mine was under the max at 1000-1200'

[lpakiz]

I read where the limit for taps is usually 7-10 per 5/16 lateral.
Is there a limit to the total length of the lateral? Could a group of taps be 100 feet or more from the mainline and still be OK with 5/16 tube?

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

The shorter the lateral, the better. That being said, I have several places where my laterals are 100+ feet. They work but are more subject to sags etc and are not an efficient way to transfer vacuum. Eliminate the long runs if possible.

[Russell Lampron]

If you are using vacuum 5 taps is the recommended but no more than 10. If you are using gravity you can add more. With good slope you can have as many as 40 taps on a lateral and get good results. For long laterals weave the tubing through non species or smaller trees if you can to help eliminate sags.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Larry,

I don't run vaccum and have laterals 700'+ with as many as 45 taps on them and several close to this tap count and distance. I am not saying this is the best thing but it works good for me and sap quality is good with this type of setup.

[lpakiz]

Thanks for all the quick eplies. I now feel confident that my first experimental tubing setup will be fine with only 5/16 tubing...

[Fairfield Sugarmaker]

Well I don't know about a 700' lateral with 45 taps on in but my experience is that shorter laterals with 5 to 10 (max) taps and not too zig zaggy work very well. You need space for the gases from the trees to get down the line as well. So long story short, shorter laterals and fewer taps work better for us and we have about 4000 set up that way. Hope this helps

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I was at a quart per tap on my 2 smallest bushes last year with up to 45 taps on a 5/16" line. On the North bush, I came close to a quart per tap in aprox 10 days and the south bush was aprox 1 month. My biggest south bush has aprox 235 of my 500 total taps and it is closer to a pint per tap regardless of how I tubed it as they are hillside trees in the woods with not a lot of access to water and get a lot of sun and wind which dries the ground fast. I am sure they would do better on vacuum, but for gravity, they are smaller woodland trees and I have tried it both ways with them and they ran more last year with up to 45 or more taps on several different laterals with this many.

I never said this was the best way for anyone else, but it works good for me and I can't see any sap loss. I actually had my best year ever converting the rest of the taps over to this.

[maple flats]

Referring back to a presentation by Steve Childs, Cornell maple specialist, a lateral should have 5 and never have more than 10. His studies showed good flow from longer runs with large numbers of taps but his studies showed that the lower end of such latterals were actually putting pressure on the tree rather than the expected natural vacuum or even neutral vacuum. He said to test this just go to any lower tap on a good flow day and pull the tap. If sap geshes out that tap was putting pressure on the tree. If you keep to the 5-10 taps on both vacuum and gravity you will get the best total flow. His greatest concern was the trees having pressure put on them will at the end of a flow session actually force some bacteria and micro organisims into the tap hole and this starts the closure/ drying off of that hole.