What would you do?

[Mark]

Would you spent the next couple months changing out 12,000 drop lines so you could put check valves on or put up an additional 3000 to 5000 more taps on new tubing?
Would the increase of more taps be more than the increase from check valves on old tubing?
The existing tubing has some frozen liquid in the 5/16 tube in places which I think would slow us down.

[Dave Y]

I am not completely conviced the check valve is the way to go with an operation your size. But ,what Do I know I am not an expert unless I am in Virginia. You will replace check valves every year. If it were me I would add the taps and put check valves on a older woods that you can monitor. The the following year I would put the check valve spout on all of them if they proved out . Thats me, someone else will have a differing opinion

[Jim Brown]

DaveY I bought 300 check valves to put on our small bush.Tubing is 4 years old and it is separate from our main bush If they work like advertsized I will change all next year. I was willing to risk $100 to see if they work

Jim

[Dave Y]

Jim,
I am glad you bought the 300 spouts. You can tell me how the work. That way I wont have to do the R&D.

[PATheron]

Mark- You know if you put all those additional taps in your going to get a lot more sap. Do it, then put new plastic adapters in your existing stuff and wait and see how everyone else does with the new ones this year. I know in my area just running new plastic in the tree helps an awefull lot becouse my taps seem to go the two or three months just like the proctor studies indicate. I did a lot of soul searching before I started tapping like that but it works pretty good for me. Then the following year youll have all those taps in and if the checkvalves really do work good for everyone do it if you want. First year with new tubing everything is real clean anyway and plus try to keep your pump running with thawed out sap and youll probly do pretty darn good. Just my opinion. Like Dave says everyone kind of has their own opinions on things. Theron

[Mark]

I already have 15,000 of the check valves and have been making drop lines for days. The new drop line should help even if the check valve does not. I keep looking at the calender and the days are going by too fast and wondering if I am putting my time into the most profitable area. I have enough supplies on hand to do both. A smaller bush would sure be nice about now.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Mark I say do the new woods with the check valves and then come to a conclusion for nrxt year. I dont believe that unless you have good record keeping you will ever be able to compare year to year. I would bet that even Dr perkins will tell you that no matter how careful they are in trying to keep and maintain conditions the same for testing mother nature doesnt always play fair. Boiling water in a new evap in a test bldg. still has its ups and downs as far outside temps baremetric pressure, type of water, time of year.

More taps has to mean more sap because of the all over average of out put. I think its trying to compare apples to bannanas. wind, sun, trees, soil temp, soil moisture content, soil conditions, age of the trees in the new bush, Gravity, vacuum, new tubeing, old. On years I think Im off to a bad year things are going wrong weather is crappy and at the end I made more good syrup than ever before.......GOOD LUCK

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Mark,
Might as well add my 2 cents. I'd tap the new bush. I would use stubby spouts so that the new valve adapters would be easy to use next year. After you get the new woods done, I'd see if there was time to get some of the drop lines changed on the existing bush. I've been changing them out on mine and can do about 50 per hour. This also involves getting the branches and debris off laterals, repairing obvious chews, and tightening things up (all of which I will probably do more of come tapping time). I bought my droplines made up to save me the time making them.
Doug

[maplwrks]

Mark, How is your production now? I have to believe if you are pushing 1/2 gal per tap, you won't be increasing your #s that much. I think adding 5000 more taps will increase your #s more than 15000 check valves will.

[Mark]

I have help coming tomorrow and we are going to see how long it takes to do new drop lines.
Last year I added about 2000 taps with all new tubing and that line did not run any longer than the 9 year old stuff, but last year was perfect, no hot days.
I guess it would depend on the season.

[Mark]

I did about 1/3 gallon per tap last year but had low vacuum on the back half of the bush. I am fixing that problem with an extra 2 inch air line and am also going to a two stage 20 hp sihi pump to get the vacuum a little higher.

[ennismaple]

I'd run tubing for the new bush and put it on stubbies with check valve adapters. You'll get the most immediate bang for your buck and can evaluate how well your new pump and dryline have worked on the old bush.

[DrTimPerkins]

I'd run tubing for the new bush and put it on stubbies with check valve adapters. You'll get the most immediate bang for your buck and can evaluate how well your new pump and dryline have worked on the old bush.

Those commenting are correct in many ways. The CV spout adapter won't help much on a brand new system. So put in new line this year....but to give yourself the most options for next year, put in stubby spouts so that you can use CV next year, or something else if you prefer. Even just a brand new adapter will get you about 10-15% improvement in sap yield on a system that is 4+ years old (under vacuum). A CV adapter has the potential to do considerably better than that under the right conditions.

One other note though....with a season that stays cold really late, and then gets hot and stays hot....not much you can do that will help under those conditions, whether it be a brand new tubing system, regular adapters, CV adapters....nothing much will help if Mother Nature decides to shut things down in that way. Basically you just have to hope you don't get conditions like that.

Tim P.
UVM PMRC

[Mark]

It looks like I am going for as many new taps that I can put in over the next two months.
Thanks for the advice.