Leader 3/16 CV Spouts--is the Jury still out?

I used some of the new Leader 3/16 Check Valve (CV) spouts this season and I'm still not quite sure what to think of them. Today when I was pulling taps, I made a few observations:

1) I observed a couple taps missing the ball in the check valve. I have no idea where it went, how, or why.
2) Some of the balls were stuck in one position or the other. For example, some allowed the sap to flow back out of them when pulled, yet some did not allow the water I spray into the spout to enter. This is troubling if the spout was not allowing sap to enter the line for all or even part of the season.
3) I noticed some greenish "algae" on the ends of the CV's when pulled. I did not notice it on the white CDL's. Not sure if this is a big deal or not.
4) I'm not sure the procedure I should be using when washing the CV drops. My usual way is to pull the spout, spray warm water from backpack sprayer into spout until it runs out the previously pulled spout or at least for a 3-4 seconds, then I simply allow the drop to hang and air dry for a week or so, then plug it into the "T". Spraying water into the CV though, when working right, the water won't flush back out. I've been holding it up in the air for a while to try to get it to drain into the lateral but I know I'm not getting 100% of the water out. What's the right way to do this with CV's??
5) The taps pulled harder than the CDL white taps. This could be because of the tap design and perhaps I sank them in a little too deep.

Overall I had a good season and I'm not upset by a lack of sap. I used CV's only on a couple of lines with 30-40 taps that were 2nd year lines. I thought they were the answer to prevent contamination from getting into the tap hole but I'm not so sure about them. What are your thoughts/experiences with CV's??

I used CV spouts in my whole woods this year. About 295 of them. Honestly, this year it was probably a waste of money. I had a great year and probably will be close to .6gpt once it's all tallied, but it was a super cold year, and even the buckets my neighbors had out ran good for 6 weeks. When it was actually warm enough to run, that is. I'm thinking that any new spout on vacuum would have done very well in my situation with the weather this year.

I have had the exact same experience as you with their function. I only found one or two with no balls, but I've found 4 with stuck balls while pulling taps. I found one more during the season. It happened to be on a good running young tree that I had seen running well the previous day. That morning it wasn't running at all which had her kinda confused. I thought maybe the tap downstream had a plug in it or something. When I pulled it though and it didn't pull any air I tried blowing through it. It was stuck tight. I grabbed a small stick and pushed the ball. It took a surprising amount of force, but it did pop back out of its seat. I don't know if it would have eventually gotten fixed by the pressure difference or not. I'm similarly unsure if those other 4 were plugged for a day, a week, or the whole season.

About getting them to dry, you could just cut them off and then come back after they dry and plug the line onto the T. It'd be one less thing to do come 2019.

Three years ago I tried them and when I pull taps with vac on I noticed some we're stuck open because of the slime in the seat where ball sits, a couple we're stuck shut. I found two completely closed off. So I stopped using them.

This year I had a new 1000 tap bush and my best other Sugarbush which is my oldest is 850 taps of old forest trees most of which are 24"+. I tapped the new one 1-29 and the old one 2-8. The new install on the 1000 taps ran hard until the middle of April averaging well over 1 Gpt per day, or 10 weeks. My older Sugarbush started off great had a couple runs of 2400 gallons of sap in 36 hours on 850 taps, however about six weeks in which would have been the first week of March we had a week and a half freeze up when this was over I was expecting to still see 2-3 gpt per day. However I was only getting a half a gallon Pratap at best, and as I've thought about it for the last couple weeks it has to be because of the old contaminated lines, I will try the check valves again this year now that I have a better Baseline of these sugar bushes. A few years ago I was overlooking the fact that when we are pulling tabs what we are seeing if that current time isn't necessarily indicative of what happened earlier and I guess we need to look at it as what's already been done by that check valve not what it looks like now.

I can clearly see that the bacteria had a lot to do with the holes closing.

One thing that's a fact is that the principal of a check valve is there the idea is completely relevant however there are certain things that in the field throwing different obstacles as I have found and you others as well, but I will try them again even after swearing I never would, mainly because it's going to cost about the same to replace a drop line as it will throw in a check valve and most of my drops are 3 to 4 years old now......

We have used cvs since 2009 when they first came out. Back then the only choice was black nylon adapter with stubby. We now use the one piece polycarbonate cvs. We continue to use them because they work. This year we started tapping on Dec 26 and our last boil was Apr 24. We were still getting great runs till the end. We averaged 41.34gpt of sap this year. Last year we did 43.1gpt with cvs and year before we were 42.58gpt. It does take longer to tap using them, but I will continue to use them. I'm certain they run longer than any other spout on the market.
Neil

(4-10) I cut a few maples down the sap was poring out. I had large mix of taps in this year. My flow had really slowed down so I pulled the taps and really took a hard look at which ones had totally dried up. my 5/16 with 17 inches vacuum on sap sucker. I saw no difference from check valves to strait stubby. The clear ones of both had the highest % still running. Many of black one had stopped

3/16 with 3 year old tap were still running a week after I stopped. sap on 3/16 was also clearer

As far as cleaning goes, we do not clean. When pulling taps, We cut spouts off and let drops hang open for a couple weeks. This dries most of system. We carry a role of surveyors tape with us and flag any spot that is dirty, damaged, or plugged and replace. After a couple weeks of hanging open, we plug back on t. We do this with our 3/16". Our 5/16" tubing is done a little differently.

Used the new 3/16 CV this year and don't plan on going back to them again next year, except maybe for some of the steepest lines with best natural vacuum. Perhaps the 5/16 CV are sturdier but the 3/16 seemed a little flimsy. Had stems breaking off when attaching to drops if we weren't super careful. When branches came down on lateral lines, several times the spouts broke off with the stress, leaving plastic in the tree. Never had these issues with CDL white 3/16. Some of the same issues you had when it came to cleaning the lines. I like to leave drops hanging so no moisture collects in the drop, and I like to leave spouts on so the mud wasps use the spout instead of the tubing to build their nests. The CV makes that strategy questionable.

We did some research on 3/16" lines over the past 4 yrs on lines with high vacuum from pumps. What we found is that the first year the 3/16" out-performed the 5/16" by about 11%. This was because it added a bit over 2" Hg of vacuum on top of the high vacuum we were already pulling. The second year, 3/16" barely out-performed 5/16". By the 3rd year, 5/16" did better. This year 5/16" also did better. We "dry clean" the lines each year (pull spouts with vacuum on). We tried new spouts, new CV spouts, and new drops with CV spouts as ways to keep yields high. With the 5/16" lines we saw the normal pattern: CV did better than new spouts, and new drops with new CV did a small amount better. On the 3/16" lines, only new drops did better than 5/16". New spouts and new CV did not perform well, and the yields were less than 5/16" lines.

We believe these results are indicative of an interaction between sanitation and line plugging in 3/16" tubing. When we replace drops, we also replace tees. So by replacing drops on 3/16" lines, we were not only getting better sanitation, but we also cut out the majority of the spots where plugs were stopping flow. This indicates (at least on the initial analysis....and keep in mind that we only finished collecting sap on Wednesday), that the standard replacement methods alone (new spouts, new CV), which work well in 5/16" tubing systems, are not sufficient to maintain high yields in 3/16" systems, and that either frequent replacement of drops (every 2 yrs), including changing tees, or chemical sanitizer with flushing will be necessary to maintain high yields as 3/16" tubing systems age.

Thus, different results with 3/16" CV are likely to be extremely variable and hard to interpret, and probably represent some combination of sanitation and plugging. Either way, it is clear that standard 5/16" replacement strategies don't carry-over perfectly to 3/16" systems.

Dr. Tim, have you ever done research on 5/16ths drops into 3/16ths systems and how that might compare to CV taps, or even just regular taps with 3/16ths drops?

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Originally Posted by Walling's Maple Syrup

We have used cvs since 2009 when they first came out. Back then the only choice was black nylon adapter with stubby. We now use the one piece polycarbonate cvs. We continue to use them because they work. This year we started tapping on Dec 26 and our last boil was Apr 24. We were still getting great runs till the end. We averaged 41.34gpt of sap this year. Last year we did 43.1gpt with cvs and year before we were 42.58gpt. It does take longer to tap using them, but I will continue to use them. I'm certain they run longer than any other spout on the market.
Neil

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How old is the tubing system? Are the trees larger than average, sometimes that can make some large yields, or just some good trees

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Originally Posted by blissville maples

How old is the tubing system? Are the trees larger than average, sometimes that can make some large yields, or just some good trees

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Tubing is not new. We are on a four year rotation with drops so approximately 25% of those are new every year. Trees are average size with many being smaller than average. For us, high yields consistently comes from the ability to keep tapholes productive for as long as four months or more. This is done through the use of cvs and no leaks. I am a leak fanatic. I walk and leak check at least 2500 taps each day even if vacuum levels are where I want them. Micro leaks on mainlines(mostly saddles) are a huge culprit of taphole drying. A lot of my leak checking is done at night when temps approach freezing. Just before freezeup, even the tiniest of leaks ice up and are super easy to find. We also run an electric releaser on our main woods (5500 taps). This is an advantage also.

That was my next question was about the releaser, I am going to try to find an electric one as the mechanical releases induce a lot of backflow every time they don't

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Originally Posted by Walling's Maple Syrup

As far as cleaning goes, we do not clean. When pulling taps, We cut spouts off and let drops hang open for a couple weeks. This dries most of system. We carry a role of surveyors tape with us and flag any spot that is dirty, damaged, or plugged and replace. After a couple weeks of hanging open, we plug back on t. We do this with our 3/16". Our 5/16" tubing is done a little differently.

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What style "T" are you using? The cup style or the pin style? I have the CDL cup style which work well with a spout on but with just the tubing stuck in, I'm afraid it would fall out rather easily. Glad to hear you like the CV's. In 3/16 I assume you're using Leader or do you use some other brand and then an adapter? As far as I know, the Leader is the only CV spout in 3/16.

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Originally Posted by Snowmad

What style "T" are you using? The cup style or the pin style? I have the CDL cup style which work well with a spout on but with just the tubing stuck in, I'm afraid it would fall out rather easily. Glad to hear you like the CV's. In 3/16 I assume you're using Leader or do you use some other brand and then an adapter? As far as I know, the Leader is the only CV spout in 3/16.

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D&G t with pin. D&G 3/16" tubing. Leader 3/16" cvs. One piece. We use pin ts for everything. Tubing fits on nice and it eliminates one step (cutting off old spout) while tapping the following year.

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Originally Posted by Snowmad

I used some of the new Leader 3/16 Check Valve (CV) spouts this season and I'm still not quite sure what to think of them. Today when I was pulling taps, I made a few observations:

1) I observed a couple taps missing the ball in the check valve. I have no idea where it went, how, or why.
2) Some of the balls were stuck in one position or the other. For example, some allowed the sap to flow back out of them when pulled, yet some did not allow the water I spray into the spout to enter. This is troubling if the spout was not allowing sap to enter the line for all or even part of the season.
3) I noticed some greenish "algae" on the ends of the CV's when pulled. I did not notice it on the white CDL's. Not sure if this is a big deal or not.
4) I'm not sure the procedure I should be using when washing the CV drops. My usual way is to pull the spout, spray warm water from backpack sprayer into spout until it runs out the previously pulled spout or at least for a 3-4 seconds, then I simply allow the drop to hang and air dry for a week or so, then plug it into the "T". Spraying water into the CV though, when working right, the water won't flush back out. I've been holding it up in the air for a while to try to get it to drain into the lateral but I know I'm not getting 100% of the water out. What's the right way to do this with CV's??
5) The taps pulled harder than the CDL white taps. This could be because of the tap design and perhaps I sank them in a little too deep.

Overall I had a good season and I'm not upset by a lack of sap. I used CV's only on a couple of lines with 30-40 taps that were 2nd year lines. I thought they were the answer to prevent contamination from getting into the tap hole but I'm not so sure about them. What are your thoughts/experiences with CV's??

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I haven't seen a 3/16 CV spout in person but I am assuming it is the same design as a 5/16 but with a 3/16 drop connection. I am also assuming that you are using these spouts in a gravity situation and without mechanical vacuum (hybrid system).

If my assumptions are correct, then I have a couple thoughts about your observations.

When you say a couple balls were missing, do you mean the ball and tip of the spout were missing, or just the ball? If you look closely at the spout (assuming it is assembled the same as a 5/16) the tip can be removed and the ball will then be able to come out. If you pull the spout from the tree and the tip stays in the tree (this does happen) then the ball is likely to fall out as well.

What are you using to pull your spouts? Prior to acquiring a legit spout puller I had quite a few cv spout tips stay in the tree.

As for the balls being "stuck". This will on occasion happen and most of the time it is the case from the beginning. I have found it is important to check to make sure the ball functions before setting the spout in the tree. If it does not, then I do not use it. Probably about 1 in 200 have this issue.

It is important to recognize that these spouts are designed to be used with vacuum and to be used only one season. I'm not sure your observations regarding the check valve not working when trying to backflush the spout with water necessarily imply the spout was not working effectively in the conditions it was designed for. I pull my taps with the vac. on and I have never found a cv spout that was not functioning correctly at the end of the season.

If you desire to rinse the drop using the method you describe, it would likely make the most sense to cut the spout off and then rinse the drop.