Sugaring season was good, bad and somewhere in between, depending on location

Apr. 30—WATERTOWN — This past Valentine's Day was a bittersweet one for maple syrup producer C. Douglas Thompson.

"I actually boiled the first time this year on Valentine's Day," he said of the process of boiling down maple tree sap to make maple syrup. "It was the earliest I've ever boiled."

Until Tuesday, Mr. Thompson, who runs a large sugaring operation in the town of Dekalb with his wife, June, had been president of the New York State Maple Producers Association. It held its annual meeting Tuesday in Syracuse, where Mr. Thompson stepped down from the post.

The Thompsons tap about 8,500 trees annually on the farm that's been in the family since the 1850s. "Maple has pretty much always been a part of it," he said. About 15 years ago, Mr. Thompson stopped milking cows on the farm and now focuses on the sugaring operation.

This year, the Thompsons produced about 2,100 gallons of maple syrup. Last year, that figure was "well over" 3,000.

It was a quirky year for maple syrup producers in Northern New York. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that Vermont, New York and Maine are the top maple producing states, and produce about 80% of the maple syrup in the nation, with Vermont the overwhelming top producing state.

Production in Northern New York varied in different zones, with differences of a few degrees in temperature and other influences apparently creating a wide gap in production numbers.

"It was a strange year in the north country because I had about two-thirds of a crop," Mr. Thompson said. "My understanding, talking to a bulk buyer, is that around the Black River area, they had a really good crop all the way around. With the weather, depending on location, elevation and whatever, a difference of two or three degrees in temperature was making a significant difference in peoples' production. Around the state, in Western New York, it was a bumper crop. The Lower Hudson Valley — a bumper crop. And Central New York did very well."

Mr. Thompson recalled talking to a large syrup producer from Clinton County at Tuesday's conference.

"His lower-elevation bush made over half a gallon per tap and the upper elevation bush, about a quart per tap," Mr. Thompson said. "So, here's a guy that has a couple of bushes, a big producer and they (sugar bushes) maybe 10 miles apart. But that difference in elevation made a big difference in production."

An early run trend

In Lewis County, Haskell Yancey, his wife Jane and son Timothy are the fourth and fifth generation to tap trees on the Yancey farm, just outside of Croghan on Long Pond Road. At Yancey's Sugarbush, traditional methods of making syrup are still being used.

"It was interesting, unusual weather patterns this year," said Mr. Yancey, a state director of the New York State Maple Producers Association.

The most unusual aspect was the early start of the season in February. The USDA reported in March that maple syrup operations in the Northeast were tapping several weeks earlier than usual.

Jason Lilley, assistant Extension professor of sustainable agriculture and maple industry educator with University of Maine Cooperative Extension, said climate change was to blame for the early start of the season. "If we were experiencing this in a single season, I would say that it's just a result of an abnormally warm winter. However, this has been a widely recognized trend among the maple industry over several seasons," Mr. Liley said in a USDA news release.

Mr. Yancey, 70, is a dedicated reader of the "Looking backward" column in the Watertown Daily Times, especially any weather insights from 100 years ago.

"If you look back exactly 100 years ago, there was five feet of snow in the woods in February and March," Mr. Yancey said. "It was a very late season getting started because of all the snow. I looked back in our records, and it was one of the years this operation didn't make syrup until April. There's only been seven or eight years where that's been the case."

"I remember some pretty tough winters," said Mr. Thompson, 72. "In my memory, I believe this has been the warmest winter that I can remember. I wouldn't have records to prove that or not. Memories are faulty. This winter, two nights it hit 20 below and maybe a half dozen that hit zero or lower. That's not normal for the north country. Or it didn't used to be normal. I have no idea what the new normal is."

"In the Northeast, late winter and spring are the times of year that are experiencing the most dramatic climate change, so it's perhaps no surprise that tapping patterns are changing," researcher Heidi Asbjornsen, professor of natural resources and the environment at the University of New Hampshire, said in the USDA news release.

"What happened this year with us is that we weren't able to get ready in February," said Mr. Yancey. "There was just no way possible with our personnel situation and whatnot."

The first half of February, Mr. Yancey said, was actually better sap weather than the first half of March.

"But those who got sap in February probably didn't get any sap again for almost a month — until the middle of March," he said. "In our case, once it started to come, we pretty much had sap every day there for a while. Maple Weekend, (March 18, 19) we had sap and then there was a break. Then, after that, we had some of it catching up, not that it ran continuously. Once the second half of March rolled around, we had a fair amount of sap."

Maple sap runs when there are freeze-thaw cycles. The USDA says the best tapping window is the six-to-eight-week period where the number and magnitude of freeze-thaw cycles are the greatest. If this window occurs earlier in the winter-dormant period, maple sugar producers will tap trees earlier.

"Seasons are definitely coming earlier and getting done sooner," Mr. Yancey said. "What I've also noticed is that our temperatures seem to be more extreme for the season. You go from too cold to too warm and you don't get the 25 to 45 days like you used to down like 10 degrees or whatever and then up to 50-60. You don't get long, sustained runs that way. What you really need is it to freeze at night and warm up during the day. But not so extreme in either way. We do seem to swing from too cold to too warm and too warm to too cold or whatever during what should be the production season."

The Yancey Sugarbush made about 800 gallons of syrup this year, which Mr. Yancey said is about the usual result.

The Yanceys and the Thompsons also sell their syrup on the commercial market in addition to local customers.

"This year, the price is down on that," Mr. Yancey said. "There's a lot of carry-over syrup from last year apparently, and the exchange rate with Canada, which is where the price on the wholesale drum market is set, is not in our favor in terms of our syrup prices."

Canadian maple syrup industry accounts for approximately 75% of the world's maple syrup production, with 89% of the Canadian production originating from Quebec, according to stats from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

"The price is down about 30 cents a pound," Mr. Thompson said. "That means we're down about three-and-a-half dollars a gallon on bulk."

The season had its ups and downs, but Mr. Thompson taps into an encouraging fact as he looks back on it: "It was disappointing, but it'll pay the bills. That's the main thing."

He added, "It's up to the trees, pretty much plain and simple. It's like most farming enterprises. You depend on nature and sometimes it works in your favor and sometimes, not so much so."