Maple sap is running in WI..........it started early .......

[riversedge]

even earlier than last year--which I think we started first week in Feb--not sure if my memory is correct.
Anyway we have several gallon jars made already this year--started cooking the sap last week in January.
I gather the sap a few hours a day-cloudy weather for the most part though. Makes it chilly work and my getting elderly bones get tired easily.
its a family thing. we all pitch in and all enjoy the tasty maple syurp for the upcoming year





Warm winter leads to early maple syrup season


https://brownfieldagnews.com/news/warm-winter-leads-to-early-maple-syrup-season/

February 8, 2024 By Larry Lee Filed Under: Ag Weather, Michigan, News, Specialty Crops, Wisconsin

The unusually warm winter has led to an early maple syrup season.

Theresa Baroun is the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association. She tells Brownfield it’s normal for producers to start tapping maple trees in southern Wisconsin in early March and see the central and northern producers start a week or two later. Baroun says this year, even the northern producers have been gathering sap for more than a week. “Each year, it seems to be earlier and earlier but nothing like this year. I have to say from producing maple syrup since I was a little kid, and our operation being around for 60 years, we’ve never had it where it was as early as this year.”

Baroun says they can tap maple trees for sap once temperatures are above 20 degrees and collect sap up until the trees are about ready to bud. “And in that time of the budding-out, it will create, for the sap that may come out of it yet, a buddy-tasting syrup so at that time, the trees are saying it’s time to be done taking the sap and let the sap go into making the leaves on the trees.”

The Baroun family’s Maple Sweet Dairy near DePere started cooking sap to make syrup Wednesday.

The top five states for maple syrup production in order are Vermont, New York, Maine, Wisconsin, and Michigan, with Vermont more than doubling the output of second-place New York.

[people]

1. Thanks for posting this

Hope the sap brings you delicious maple syrup,

[MiHale]

2. So envious...the Flavor of the North...

Maple syrup and equal portions of spicy ketchup mixed together on a Beef Pasty.

[bello]

3. It's more than just above twenty degrees

We are maple syrup hobbyists in east central Iowa. Yeah, that’s outside of the area usually considered suitable for making maple syrup. But since we are just doing it for fun, it doesn’t matter that we may not be super efficient.

One of the conditions for a good sap flow is to have cold nights and warm days. A rule of thumb is forty degrees F for highs and twenty-five F for lows. Then the sap runs up the tree during the warm days and back down during the cool nights. The taps collect their cut of the sap both ways.

Now the problem arises is that one of the first artifacts of global warming is that the lows do not get as low as the normally did. Hence, you don’t have the temperature differential needed for really good sap flows.

So, the best areas are moving north and also becoming less productive. Sigh.