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Wake up fellow Mainers! Sure felt like a nice fall morning at my house today. Thought about working on sap lines but then realized leaves are still on the trees so went to my real job :lol: It won't be long though. Hope everyone is having a good summer in these nutty times.
Still making plans for the upcoming season. Considering downsizing a bit since I have my RO now.
Changing any of the gravity to 3/16 this year??
Just realize that 3/16 is great in year 1, but it requires more work in the following years. I have quit a bit of 3/16. After the first season it seems to help if you clean the tubing 2x, once shortly after the season and again mid to late fall. I like using 5/16 drops into the 3/16 laterals best. I also change every fitting before every season, after the second cleaning. That way there is very little debris left in the lines to flake off and create a blockage in the tees or connectors.
We are going to put 1 small line along a rock wall on 3/16" tubing, about 30 taps with 5/16" drops. Not quite 30' of drop but close so we'll get some vacuum. This line runs unbelievably well and sap yield per tap is double or more over some of our other lines so I am excited to see what we get with vacuum. Easy to replace every 3 years with the drops. That's all I'll ever do 3/16" on. The other bushes are too flat and maples too spread out for it. Other plans are to run all new lines in one bush and add a shurflo. Put solar power to it and to the other bush we had a shurflo on last year. That would give us vacuum in 3 of 4 bushes. If money allows, the 2 shurflo setups will have controllers from Biz on them as well. Had to buy some syrup a couple weeks back but we are inching closer and closer to making what we sell retail which is the goal.
Looking forward to a good season as well, I ran most of my 3/16 a few weeks back. I've been getting conflicting information, some use 5/16 taps and others 3/16. What do we think the sap yield differential would be year 1? Then would it be different year 2 & 3 as long as we change them out?
Go with 5/16 drops with a 5/16 tap. Stop up this coming weekend we are on the maple tour.
Brian
. Would love to join you some weekend in Greenwood. Unfortunately my ACL rebuild has got me propped up for the new few weeks. Hope the Maple Tour goes well for you!Quote:
Originally Posted by western mainer