David my average seems much lower than yours. this year I had 32 taps on 14 trees and yielded aprox 4 gallons . jury is still out last of it is cooking now. I would say 75% came from 5 trees while others proved fruitless. So on an average it took me about 8 taps per gallon. This year our season was really broken up. We had a few days here and there over a couple month period, nothing steady. This is only my second year and I have no real taps or buckets. I have been using copper tubing for spiles and coffee cans for buckets. On good days I have had buckets overflowing and fallen off on the ground empty. Much room for improvement. All in all I am happy. I have zero invested and enough syrup for myself and my daughters familyās. I hope to get some real equipment and expand to the other side of my creek where the majority of my mature maples are. I donāt get back there much because I donāt want my dogs thinking it is ok for them to go there, They go everywhere I go.