3/16 vs 5/16 drops

[sap hound sryup]

Adding 4,000 drops on a 3/16 system question is which drop is recommended and why. We have used 3/16 drops only so far. We are always looking for better ideas!

[bmbmkr]

I'm pretty new to sugaring, goin into my 5th year. So take my experience for what it's worth.

I started with 3/16 tubing & drops. One night as the flow stopped, I watched sap pull back to the taps through the 30" 3/16 drops. In my second season, 2018, I swapped those 3/16 to 5/16 drops and added another 125 taps. I've only seen the sap pull back up the 5/16 drops from 8 to 10" when the flow stops. I'm in southernmost OH, and we have a short season anyways, but I wanted to maximize every advantage of tap hole heath & sanitation. I can't say they have performed better, but it gives me some peace of mind.

I originally purchased 2500' of 5/16, but then found out about the natural vac of 3/16, so I bought a bunch of 3/16 to run my system, and I've been using the 5/16 for drop lines. It's not too big of a hassle having 2 different sizes of fittings., and I originally purchased a 5/16 tubing tool, so for 3/16, I cut a 1 1/2" piece of 5/16, slice it length ways and slip it over the 3/16, it works good enough for me to maintain 600 taps now.

I tapped a sugar maple in mid Jan 2018, it uprooted in a wind storm in Feb. I pulled taps except that one the first of March, the tree fell right on the tap. I went up there on the 26th of March and the sap was still running out of that tap- 10 weeks!! We run out of sap storage weather long before our sugar maples bud out. This year the silvers budded in Jan before I even tapped the sugars & the reds were budding in Feb. I only have a few dozen reds and they are goin on their own laterals this year so i can pull them all off when they start to bud. I messed up a lot of good syrup with buddy red maple sap 2 years ago- didn't tap them at all this past year.