Dr. Tim, In the fall I had bruised a downward hanging limb with a 'boom' 'pigtail' pole on the back of my tractor. When the sap started running I watched as the limb dripped sap from each of the bruised places. I might have gotten a 5 gal bucket of sap a day if I had been able to catch all the drops.
I got to thinking that if I were to cut,, "prune" the limb off I could tie that limb into my gravity tubing. As mountianvan showed in his picture but on a downward hanging limb and could be gravity or vacuum. I and I'm sure as most have been cutting off those low hanging limbs that were swatting us in the face could now use as taps instead of drilling a hole in the trunk. Might eliminate the "baggie" for a piece of tubing.
Now question #1 might be,,,,, what size limb might be needed to equal or surpass one tap in the trunk? #2 could several limbs be "pruned" each year to get more sap than from a tap? #3 How big,,, diameter would the limb need to be? About what size are the trunks where you been cutting the saplin off to do your saplin research? Then "we" could say we are just "pruning" a tree not cutting it off. Start pruning the small trees. I could 'see' tying a limb down to get a downward hanging limb.
Now I know,,, the vision of everyone taping from ladders up in the tops of trees.
Thinking outside the box.
John
