UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- There's no point in trying to sugar coat it, warns an expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences -- the unusually warm winter is likely to result in lower amounts of maple sap produced by trees in Pennsylvania.

"The season started much earlier this year than usual," says Jim Finley, associate professor of forest resources. "In much of the state, sap started flowing in January before anybody was ready to collect it. We may produce a lot less maple sugar this year because producers missed part of the season."

Normally, the state's approximately 700 maple sugar producers tap trees in mid-February and collect sap until the end of March. Finley believes the season for sap-collecting ended in some parts of the state the first week of March. "I saw red maple bud expansion by then in many places," he says. "That usually indicates the time for sap collection is over."

According to Finley, Pennsylvania ranks fifth to eighth among states in maple sugar production most years. The output of maple sugar from Quebec, Canada, dwarfs American production.

He says Pennsylvania produces about a million pounds of maple sugar annually, which translates to 900,000 gallons of syrup and 43 million gallons of maple sap. If the sugar content of the sap is 2.5 percent, it takes 43 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup.

Ironically, another aspect of the weather -- drought -- was expected by many to stymie maple sugar production, but Finley explains why the recent lack of precipitation probably won't be a factor.

"The sugar collected this season was produced last summer by the trees and then stored over the winter," he says. "The trees are converting the carbohydrates to sugar as they come out of dormancy. So precipitation in the last few months is not really much of a factor."

Finley is aware of drought conditions that affected much of the state last summer, but says trees in the primary maple-sugar-producing area -- across the Northern Tier counties -- didn't suffer significantly.

"Drought can affect the sugar content in maple sap," he says, "and if we continue to have a drought this summer, it may limit syrup production next year. But I don't believe the drought had much of an impact on producers this year."

Even producers who tapped maple trees early this winter probably didn't get the volume of sap they usually do, Finley believes. It was unseasonably warm in January, got cold, then warm again. Sap flow started, mostly stopped and started again.

"A tap hole where you put a spile (spout) only has so much life," says Finley. "Almost instantaneously when it is drilled, yeast, bacteria and fungus start growing in the hole. Eventually they literally plug the hole. Most producers, to protect their tree and minimize wood damage, won't drill a second hole the same year. They just give up on the year."

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EDITORS: Contact Jim Finley at 814-863-0401 or e-mail fj4@psu.edu.

Contact:

Jeff Mulhollem jjm29@psu.edu 814-863-2719 814-865-1068 fax