http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Chion/js%20120326%20MapleSyrup.mp3
This winter’s unseasonably warm and dry weather has made a lot of folks happy. But not the folks in Connecticut who produce maple syrup. This nice warm weather has made this maple syrup season among the worst ever. WNPR's Jan Ellen Spiegel reports.
That racket is music to Rob LaMothe. It’s an evaporator to boil sap from a sugar maple tree into that prized and pricey treat – maple syrup. But this year that evaporator’s been running a lot less than last year at LaMothe’s Sugarhouse in Burlington and just about every other sugar house in Connecticut.
"We made nearly 14,000 gallons last year which was really good for us on 5,000 taps. This year, taking a look at the records, we’re probably gonna go just slightly over 1,000 … maybe."
State production is off as much as 70% in some places. That’s because there’s been very little of the kind of weather that makes great maple syrup: a cold winter with plenty of snowpack, followed by 6 weeks or so of below-freezing nights and 40 to 50-degree days.
"Basically we’ve gone from cold nights and warm days to warm nights and extremely warm days."
That’s Mark Harran of Brookside Farm in Litchfield and president of the Maple Syrup Producers Association of Connecticut. Like many producers he took a chance and tapped a couple of weeks earlier than normal -- always tricky. If you tap too early, the holes can close up before all the sap has run. But this year if you didn’t, the warm weather would have ruined the sap.
"I think we are generally better off tapping early and hoping for the best as the season runs out as opposed to waiting for the historical times when we’ve tapped."
The flip side – the sugar content of the sap has been so low this year that it takes nearly twice as much sap to make a gallon of syrup. Few are willing to blame climate change, but Tim Perkins, the director of the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center said sugaring season in the northeast begins and ends earlier than it did 45 years ago and is about three days shorter. His research also shows that hardwood trees like maples are beginning to inch into higher elevations seeking out colder temperatures.
"Which seems to indicate or at least be consistent with the notion that the climate is warming."
In the short term, he said, there will be plenty of syrup.
"In the real long term it becomes a little bit more of a question."
But not the only question. What really keeps syrup producers up at night is the Asian long-horned beetle – an invasive pest whose tree of choice is the sugar maple. According to Chris Martin, the director of forestry for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection so far the beetle is being held at bay in New York and in Massachusetts.
"The current quarantine area is just below the Massachusetts Turnpike, which is way too close for comfort, given the size of the infestation over 100 square miles. If it were to establish itself in Connecticut it would be devastating."
Trees would be cut, chipped and burned and the stumps would be ground down. And that’s what has Bill Proulx of River’s Edge Sugarhouse in Ashford worried.
"I’m Looking a investing more money in our business, tapping more trees, upgrading some equipment and then I kind of second guess myself with that sort of threat so close by. I’ll probably cross my fingers and go for it."
Back at LaMothe’s, the sap is at a rolling boil and Rob – who has a bit of Santa Claus look to him – peers in.
"Do you ever wonder why you got into in the first place?"
"I wouldn’t change a thing. There’s enough gray in my beard that I know I really want to do this and I want to continue doing it."
"How much of that gray’s from this year?"
"There’ about 80 percent of it that turned gray from this year. I’m an optimist you have to be optimistic and I think next year we’re gonna have a good year."
For WNPR, I'm Jan Ellen Spiegel.
