Follow me as Chad takes us down to the vacuum pump, which creates a vacuum (negative pressure) on the sap lines throughout the sugar bush. As we discussed during our tapping video our sap lines maintain a constant vacuum when the sap is running to let the maple tree know this is not a serious wound. The tree’s immune response is triggered by a change in pressure, so we mimic the tree’s pressure with our vacuum line.
Fun fact: many types of trees including maples use pressure to move sap (and all the goodies sap carries) up and down the tree. In the spring time when the maple sap is flowing most, the tree is mobilizing sugar reserves in the roots to prepare for making the buds and then leaves of spring.
When we drill a hole in the trunk of one of our maple trees, the tree senses this pressure change from the negative pressure in the sapwood to “pull” sap up to the branches and immediately begins to heal the hole. We use vacuum to slow the immune response and to keep the hole free of bacteria to limit any potential infection to the tree.
Check out Part 2 – Daily Vacuum Pump Check of our Making Maple series and learn from Chad how the vacuum pump system works in our sugar bush.
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