Adirondack Sugarbush Already Starting To Flow - Early Sap Means Less Sugar In Syrup

[hatrack]

SARANAC LAKE — It may have an impact on the upcoming season or it may not — at this point it’s hard to tell — but what is for certain is that the unseasonably warm temperatures in the eastern U.S. this winter are causing Adirondack sap to flow earlier than usual.

“The sap is running at this time, but what exactly it means is anybody’s guess,” said Hans Michielen, an associate professor of recreation and the sugar bush manager at Paul Smith’s College, told the Enterprise Friday. “My fear is that this is using up the stored sugars and stored starches that are stored over the winter, which may produce a lower sugar content in the sap in the spring.”

Michielen explained that a higher sugar content in the sap requires less overall sap to make a gallon of maple syrup. He further noted that a good season at the Paul Smith’s College Sugar Bush records sugar contents of 2.9 to 3.3 brix percentage of sugar in solution, which requires 33 to 34 gallons of sap to make a full gallon of maple syrup. Last season, Michielen said that the average sugar content of PSC’s sugar bush was lower than usual at 2 to 2.3 brix percentage of sugar in solution, but it also turned out to be one of the most successful seasons they have had.

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Corwin explained that the maple sugaring season typically runs from the beginning of March to mid-April, and until those dates arrive, it’s hard to see what impacts a warm winter will bear. “No harm,” he said of the trees’ condition currently. “Who knows how the season will be. You never know until you get done with the season. It’s just wait and see.” According to Michielen, this is the time of year that the sugar makers begin to revamp their equipment, prepare for the year ahead and “start to talk.” “Everybody is still optimistic, but we are starting to talk about global warming.”

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http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=5464

[jody]

1. How much damage by acid rain have sugar maples sustained? n/t

[hatrack]

2. As I understand, it's been pretty substantial in the Adirondacks

They catch a lot of the shit produced by the coal plants in the upper Midwest. Points north are also having problems, thought not to the same degree as the Adirondacks.

[Quakerfriend]

3. So sad. One of my fondest memories is of going into the

basement of my cousins house at the top of Gore Mt.,North Creek, NY (~20mi. north of Albany)- deep in the Adirondack Mts.- to examine the containers of Maple Syrup.