I used 250 new spout adapters on 5 year old tubing this year and in one bush I had it split in the middle by a fence and I saw basically no difference on the side of the fence that had the adapters vs the side of the fence without them. Both sides endured many days in 50s and 60s throughout the season and they both basically quit running at the same time and a freeze did not recharge either of them when my north side taps that I tapped aprox 17 days later were recharged and running good. After 6 weeks and they had both stopped running, I pulled the taps and all the holes looked nice and whitish wood inside including the aprox 65 taps on the one side of the fence that were 5+ year old taps. I only sanitized these taps with alcohol and the other side of the fence had 172 taps with new spout adapters. If it was ever a year to prove them, this was it with the crazy weather we had this year and I saw hardly any difference at all.

My conclusion, I won't deal with the hassle of using them again. They slow down tapping a lot and slow down cleanup a lot more. They are about the same speed as alcohol sanitizing each spout. Maybe alcohol does that good??

Conclusion # 2 I got about 450 gallons less sap this year than I have gotten in my best year and the weather this year was difficult for sap flow and I feel very fortunate and blessed to get what I did. Maybe on vaccuum it makes some difference on sap, but my sugar content has gotten higher each of the last 3 years and sap quanity has been close to same which leads me to believe that these studies might be true for vacuum, but I don't see it in gravity. I am not seeing basically any difference between now and when tubing was new 6 seasons ago. Last year, I got 2400+ gallons in 5 days and lost probably at least 100+ that ran on the ground and made 50+ gallons of syrup from that 5 day run of sap.