Maple_syrup

Back to HomeFeature Article - March 22, 2012 Not All Bad News for Maple Syrup Producersby Jeff Green

Photo: Sap buckets may have the iconic look of the syrup season, but lines and a vacuum system were essential to syrup success this year.

Home maple syrup producers using the spile and bucket system had a poor season this year, as did a number of commercial producers in the south end of Frontenac and Lennox and Addington counties, but commercial producers in the North of 7 region, where the snow cover was greater, are reporting that they were able to make high quality syrup.

Volumes were down, but the haul was still respectable

Vernon Wheeler, of Wheeler’s Sugar Camp near McDonalds Corners, said the yield was not far off the target of 1 litre of syrup per tap.

He attributes the success to getting an early start, and to an unusual run between March 8 and this past weekend.

“We tapped in mid-February and it is a good thing we did,” Vernon Wheeler said. “We had some pretty good days at the beginning of the run, and that helped.”

What surprised Wheeler was the fact that the sap kept up through the last couple of weeks even though the temperature has not even approached the freezing point for over ten days.

Nights of around -5° Celsius and days of 5 to 7°C are considered ideal syrup weather, with the freeze-thaw cycle providing the trees with the necessary conditions to pull sap from the roots and send it up the tree.

“It seemed to run this year without it freezing at night, maybe because the days were so hot and in the evening the temperature would go down so dramatically that the trees may have reacted to that difference,” he said, adding, “I’ve never seen this kind of thing happen to this extent before, and I’ve been tapping for over 50 years. There were also some thunderstorms during the run and there is something about thunderstorms that makes the trees run.”

Mel Conboy, from the Bell Line Road north of Sharbot Lake, said that his family operation yielded about 75% of a good crop, even though he did not tap until March 8, missing the February run.

He recently invested in a vacuum system for his entire bush, replacing gravity-fed lines.

“It seems that in recent years, gravity-fed systems and the old bucket system don’t seem to be working as well. That’s why we invested in the vacuum and it worked out for us this year. The sap ran constantly for the 10 days and we were able to make high quality syrup,” Conboy said.

“People think that the vacuum sucks the sap out of tree, but that is not what happens,” said Vernon Wheeler. "The vacuum just provides enough pull to compensate when the trees are not creating enough pressure to push the drops out, and by taking one drop it creates room for another.”

“The snow cover in the bush also helped a lot,” said Mel Conboy. There was quite a bit of crusted snow in the bush, and it has stayed in place even with the warm weather, keeping the ground underneath from heating up.

Meanwhile, Gary Gorr of Harowsmith said his family operation yielded about 50% of a normal year’s syrup, even though he also started collecting sap on February 23, the earliest he has ever started in the 27 years he has been making syrup.

He also noted that during the March 8-18 main run the sap kept running even though the temperature was not dropping to the freezing point at night.

There was very little snow this winter at the Gorr farm. One thing that Gary Gorr noted, because he monitors the sugar content of the sap regularly, is that the sugar content dropped when the sun shone, and rose under cloud cover or at night, which is something he has noted in the past.

“The syrup also started off light early in the season, and then became dark. I made very little amber syrup this year, but even in the last couple of days the syrup has had very good flavour.”

While Gary Gorr would have preferred a larger crop, he said that he has no choice but to take what the trees, and the weather, have given him. “You make what you can make and that’s all you can do,” he said.

The Conboy and Wheeler operations ended their season at the beginning of this week, as the inevitable effect of the unprecedented heat wave began to make the syrup turn darker as the trees prepared to bud out.

“I expect the buds will open up tomorrow morning, or maybe the afternoon,” said Vernon Wheeler on Tuesday.

Gary Gorr said he is still holding out some hope for colder weather this coming weekend, but expects the sap that he boiled early on Tuesday morning will be the last of the season.