The maple sap is running about normally this year, aside from the fact that the annual run is about three weeks early…again. The quantity is about right, but the timing is way off.
Terry Hoover, president of the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association, and a maple syrup producer in the Listowel area, said it is becoming harder each year to predict with any precision when the tapping season will start. Or when it will end.
Producers try their best to be prepared to tap their trees when the sap starts pumping from the root up the trunk, through the branches and to the buds. But it’s fair to say that in recent years, and especially over the past two years, the syrup makers have been caught off guard and left scrambling.
“Every year you try to have things done ahead of time and be ready,” Hoover said. “And then Mother Nature decides to speed the season up by three weeks.”
The run was very early last year, starting in mid-February. What used to be “normal” was the first half of March. This year, Hoover said, the sap beat last year’s early start by one day.
Two very early seasons in a row is highly unusual, and is evidence, he said, that climate change is playing a part in the new normal.
Maple sap is basically clear water, aside from the fact that it is laced with growth inducing sugars that race straight for new buds. It takes about 40 litres of that sugar water to make one litre of maple syrup, the delectable outcome of boiling the sap down and concentrating the sugars.
Of all the pure maple syrup produced in the world, 71 per cent of it comes from Canada, and about 90 per cent of the Canadian production comes from Quebec. There are about 8,600 maple syrup businesses in Canada.
In the Guelph area, sap started running this year in mid-February, ran hard for a few days and then stalled due to cold temperatures. The sap generally only runs under the ideal conditions of moderately above zero temperatures by day and below zero temperatures at night, but during the recent run it kept coming around the clock.
“Five or 10 years ago, if the sap ran at night it was really rare,” Hoover said. “Now, we’ve seen it run all day and all night. It just seems to be a thing that is happening, so you just roll with the punches.”
Last year was labelled the “tsunami of sap,” he said, because there were five straight days of 24-hour per day running. Tanks were overflowing, with sap coming in faster than it could be boiled. Most producers had never seen anything like it.
“But right now it’s a normal season, except three weeks early,” Hoover added. “So far, the amounts are about normal.”
The sap started running again on Monday in the Guelph area, under fairly ideal conditions. Given the forecast it should run throughout the week.
When the buds appear on the trees the season is done, Hoover said. And when there’s frost in the ground the season will last longer. This year there is no frost in the ground, so the season could come to an abrupt end if daytime temperatures get too warm for too long.
Maple syrup is a significant part of the culture in these parts. The Elmira Maple Syrup Festival, billed as the largest single-day maple syrup festival in the world, is coming up on April 1. It’s about 30 minutes west of Guelph.
The Island Lake Maple Syrup Festival in Orangeville happens on the weekends of March 11-12 and 17-19, and the Terra Cotta Maple Syrup Festival in Halton Hills runs on the weekends from March 4 to April 2.
Watch for roadside syrup vendors along the highways and byways of Wellington Country and Water Region.
