Am I missing something?

[MainelyMaple]

This is my first year with a tubing set up. i have a 3/4" maineline with 60 taps on it. i also have 6 short runs with 5-10 taps each (40) total) that drain into trash cans. in the past 5 days the mainline with 60 taps only produced about 30 gallons of sap, while the small laterals with only 40 taps combined produced 35 gallons of sap. just wondering if i did something wrong with my tubing to get less sap from more taps. my laterals and mainline are tight, sloped, and fairly straight, and my laterals have 4-10 taps on them. thanks in advance

[KenWP]

Perfectly normal. Your on gravity and when you have more taps on a line it can produce less. It's basically back pressure. Those same taps on vacuum would produce a lot better. I had taps last year on tubeing that never produced until the really warm weather showed up. They always had sap in the line but just wouldn't push it out. Warmer weather should make them produce a bit better.

[MainelyMaple]

what if i vented each lateral?

[KenWP]

That is supposed to make the matter worse as you loose the natural vaccum. I tried that too. Plus it allows more germs into the lines.

[PerryW]

so you have 60 taps yielding 30 gallons or 0.5 gallons per tap.

and you have 40 taps producing 35 gallons or 0.875 gal per tap.


It is perfectly normal for different trees to run at different rates. I doubt it has anything to do with your tubing setup. Some trees are colder and will run better late in the season, and some will run better early season, and some will never run good.

[waysidemaple]

I had a gravity system that had 38 taps on it. The last tree before my barrel never ran, i could watch the sap drip out at a snails pace, i thought maybe it was because it was at the bottom of the line so i cut it out and put two buckets on it since it was so close to the barrel. All through the seeason i never got more that an inch in each bucket no matter what the weather is. this will be the fourth year tapping that tree. Some trees just dont run good.

[maple flats]

Quite normal. Are all these trees in the same environment? do some have more sun, more slope, more canopy etc, etc, etc? Too many variables. Just wait for a real run, then most if not all will flow like you want to see.

[KenWP]

All the trees I had on tubeing last year are on buckets this year and they have already put out more then they did most of last season. They only produced for a few days on tubeing.

[bigtreemaple]

could it be that some of the trees are sugar maple and some are red or silver maple??

[KenWP]

Well for me thats the case. I have 4 of 5 kinds of trees I tap. Sugar,black,silver,reds and boxelders. The boxelders I know since childhood as they grow out west. All the other maples are a recent fixture in my life. There could be almost any other kind of maple out there also. neighbours figure I am nuts as no self respecting Quebecoius taps anything but a sugar. I have one more tree to tap also but it looks like a poplar or cotton wood but has little tiney maple leaves that are silver furry on the bottom. I can find nobody who knows what they are.

[BryanEx]

I have one more tree to tap also but it looks like a poplar or cotton wood but has little tiney maple leaves that are silver furry on the bottom. I can find nobody who knows what they are.

Ken... try this site for an ID - http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/forsite/key/intro.htm

It's Virginia based but with an extensive array of trees listed. Just keep clicking on the closest description until the end and see if your unidentified tree is included.

[wildacres]

In response to the comment about more taps on gravity tubing producing less sap, I can't say that has been my experience.

I started a thread along these lines a few weeks back ("Low Flow in Lateral Lines") - and after some pointed advice in that regard, I decided to try doubling the number of taps on my laterals. I've did a bit of reading on the matter, and the article I looked at suggested that in a sealed system, there is a critical mass of sap needed in the tube for the 'flow' effect to take place. By extension, then, it implied that more taps on a lateral (15-20, instead of 5-10) might have a postive impact, especially where the slope was minimal and flow rates modest. If you think about it from the perspective of the old 'finger over the end of the straw' experiment, the more Coke or water you have in the straw, the easier the stuff flows out, no matter how tightly you have your finger on the end. It made sense to me, in any event. Course this maple business is a classic example of having a whole handful of factors affecting the outcome, while only being able to control one or two - so drawing conclusions is risky....still -

My experience was that I got better flow from the additional taps/lateral. You could see the sap 'pumping' through the lateral lines on a day with reasonable flow rates, whereas before, with fewer taps contributing to the column of sap in the lateral, the flow was a lot slower. I was thinking seriously about venting my lateral lines, but I'm glad I didn't.

I had used 5-10/lateral as a guideline, having seen that number in the Maple Syrup Producer's Guide. I'll bet when conditions are ideal, 20 taps will prove too much for the 5/16th's lateral line and flow could be inhibited. But for the unimpressive flows I've seen, this strategy seemed to work well.

In north-central new England, it's been a really awful year for many. We haven't seen 25 degrees since February 21st.

Paul L.

[wildacres]

Oh - one more thing - on the lines with more taps/lateral, when it flowed, you could see the sap going uphill! Not feet of course, but it just plowed right past those dips in the line, and easily climbed 6 inches or more in places. interesting......!

[PerryW]

My experience was that I got better flow from the additional taps/lateral. You could see the sap 'pumping' through the lateral lines on a day with reasonable flow rates, whereas before, with fewer taps contributing to the column of sap in the lateral, the flow was a lot slower. I was thinking seriously about venting my lateral lines, but I'm glad I didn't.

ABSOLUTELY! Your post at 1:47 is exactly what I've been trying to say for years about gravity tubing. I have lines with 30-35 on them that produce great natural vacuum and the lines with 5-10 produce no natural vacuum.

[farmall h]

The more taps =more flow=more natural vacuum. I have between 12-20 taps per lateral and has been that way for years. When I would remove a spout from the tree you could hear the release of vacuum. Granted it isn't like "artificial" vacuum bu it is better than no vacuum. Ran vacuum this year and notice a remarkable difference in sap flow. Next year will have to reduce # of taps per lateral for more consist vac throughout bush. Add a couple hundred more taps and you will see a BIG difference.:)

[madmantr]

I just finished pulling my taps after my first season of sugarin.It's not supposed to go below 32 for the rest of the month. I had 72 taps and only ended up with 2 1/2 gals of syrup.It was good syrup but i thought i would get a bit more. I noticed that about 25 of my taps never gave me a drop of sap. i had a friend that worked for the forestry service check my trees and he said they were all maples .I thought i tapped them all about the same .Did I not go in deep enough?Does sap flow from the edge or deeper in?
thanks

[PerryW]

I usually bore my holes 1-1/2 - 2" deep, but even a hole 1" deep (not counting the bark) should run. I would expect 1 tap in 100 to be a dry hole, but 25 dry holes out of 72 seems excessive.

Are you buckets or tubing?

[Haynes Forest Products]

The live sap wood area just under the bark. How deep did you go. The angle has nothing to do with sap flow. The angle is for allowing the sap that does flow to flow out of the tap hole and it also allows the tree to heal without dirt filling the hole from rain and such.

[madmantr]

I thought it seemed pretty high number .I bought some used drops and combined into 5 gal buckets on the larger trees .Single taps went into gal milk jugs.