Is 34 taps on one 3/16 line too many?

[Shaggy acres]

I have a great elevation drop to the sugar shack and that creates fantastic vacuum if the animals don't chew a hole in the line. I can snake a single line down one side of my property but it has allot of taps on it. Would I be better off with separating into two lines? The 34 taps are on about 1400 ft of line. Maybe 3/16 for the top half and 5\16 for the lower half but still on one line? Just don't want to be pumping sap into the bottom trees on the elevation drop instead of into the tank. What do you think?

[ADK_XJ]

I'm no expert - and when I say that I mean I have never done tubing myself but I am researching it actively as I plan to implement tubing this year - but I watched a video recently with one of the (Former) UVM maple research folks where he indicates the ideal number is about 20 however you can go much higher and they have experimented with it successfully. Check out 2 minutes in or so: https://youtu.be/nDrkU_qYb1Q?t=120

[VTnewguy]

I think you would be better off with two lines stay all 3/16. We put 15-20 on our lines of 3/16 and they are usually pretty full.

[DocsMapleSyrup]

VTnewguy is correct you want 3/16" all the way down or you will lose the vacuum effect once it hits the 5/16" line. Having done 3/16" natural gravity on 50 trees, I used 3 lines and pulled 28" of vacuum at the top of each line. You are better going to two lines.

[bmbmkr]

Two of my 3/16 laterals are 1600' long, one has 44 the other 48 taps, both have about 150'-200' of 5/16 at the bottom end of the run (ran out of 3/16 when I added these laterals) both pull 28" of vac at the top. The other ten lines in these woods are from 400-800' and have 20-30 taps, Top tree is a little over 900' ASL, bottom tree 650" and the tank is at 600'. There are a few dozen trees that are close to the mainline and didn't have enough drop for 3/16, so I put 5-7 taps on 5/16 I think there are 6 or 7 of those laterals. On nights where it don't freeze, the 3/16 will keep runnin all night once the vacuum gets started, the 5/16 won't. I averaged 1.3 gallon of sap per tap in this section last year- that was a on days it ran and a combination of 3/16 high drop and 5/16 not much drop.

[DrTimPerkins]

VTnewguy is correct you want 3/16" all the way down or you will lose the vacuum effect once it hits the 5/16" line. Having done 3/16" natural gravity on 50 trees, I used 3 lines and pulled 28" of vacuum at the top of each line. You are better going to two lines.

This is correct. You'll do fine with 34 taps, but the lines are overloaded at this point so will not perform optimally. You'll do better in terms of yield by splitting it into two lines, and if a squirrel chews into one line and stops the vacuum, the other will still be good.

[minehart gap]

Shaggy acres, what is the difference in elevation from your lowest tap to the collection tank? You want 35' of elevation drop from the lowest tap before you change to 5/16" tubing or enter a mainline so that the lateral creates the maximum natural vacuum possible, below that elevation there is not really a benefit to the 3/16" tubing vacuum wise but I would hesitate to put any unnecessary fittings (that tent to plug) and 3/16" is less expensive than 5/16" so why change? Like bmbmkr, I have several laterals over 1500' and around 40 taps on those laterals without trouble. Is 40+ taps per 3/16" lateral recommend? No, but 35 taps is reported to be acceptable and I can not warrant an additional lateral for 5 or 6 taps.

[WINDY Knoll]

We have no more than 15 taps on 3/16", spanning less than 100' per run to our 1" mainline. We tried to maximize taps while minimizing the lateral run lengths.

[Shaggy acres]

Thank you for your input. Sounds like I could run another line but not necessary. Stick with 3/16 all the way. Going to pick up a couple cheap vacuum gages this year and see what I get out of each line. Been working on a new Arch this year so really need to get that done!

[buckeye gold]

I'll add a little opinion for contemplation. First, I have all 3/16" lines and anywhere from 15-30 taps each. None of my laterals have optimum set ups as to fall and length. I only have two that have more than 10-15 feet of fall after the last tap. Most have 30 or more at the top, but as I get down slope I enter a more level area. I have never checked vacuum levels on these lines, but know I have some on all the taps. I run 5 of these laterals into a 1/2" main line once I'm out of the woods to my collection tank. I believe it still benefits me to run these 3/16th lines. I used to do buckets/bags on all these and going to tubing was an effort to reduce my labor after being diagnosed with heart disease and asthma. Here are my rationals for 3/16th tubing:

1.) Cheaper and easy to handle, set up

2.) Any vacuum is better than no vacuum

3.) Labor saving

I can go back over my records and show that even without optimum parameters I have gained sap, saved money and saved physical work with 3/16th. I think we get too hung up on perfection and max production set ups. We should evaluate what we want and if there is significant benefit in what we can do. Also, ask yourself, "do I need maximized sap production?". I am a hobby producer and if I pay my expenses and make a little extra money from sales, I'm good with that. If I can do it easier, I'm really good with that. Now if you have bigger operations and a high financial investment then I understand why you look to optimize every drop of sap, but from what I see there are a lot of producers on this forum that just don't meet that criteria. For them, if they can get some gain from a less than perfect set up then I say do it.