Though sap may stop flowing earlier than normal this year, maple syrup producers won’t necessarily experience a loss.
Ontario Maple Syrup Producer’s Association president Terry Hoover explained the syrup season began almost a month earlier this year than it did in 2015.
“We’re three weeks ahead,” he said on March 21. “That, to me, is wild.
“I was just doing my paperwork up here last week and last year on March 15 we had over two feet of snow in the bush and our first run of sap and here we are, (in 2016) we started way back like February 20th. So that’s a big difference.”
Looking at the long-range forecast, Hoover predicted producers in Wellington County and Waterloo Region would likely see two or three more runs of sap before the buds come out, rendering the sap unusable.
“The latest I’ve gone is April 17 so once those buds pop out we’re done and you look at the buds right now and there doesn’t appear to be any activity at all,” he said earlier this week.
“But yet you look at the lawns and the wheat fields, they’re nicely turning green so that tells me things are growing, the trees are, they must be growing but we haven’t seen any visible signs yet. So we watch for those buds.”
He’s looking for days that are warmer and temperatures below -3C at night.
“I was the one who was happy as pea to see all that snow this morning,” he said.
However, even if the buds were to pop out earlier than expected, producers like Hoover, who has a farm in Atwood, would have about three quarters of their crop harvested.
“So that would be okay because we’ve had two decent years the last two years … but I think we’re going to get two or three more runs so we should be good,” he said.
“We won’t be setting any records … unless we get four or five more runs, but yeah, it’s all the joys of farming as they say.”
Though production is highly dependant on the weather, Hoover did share a marker that could mean production will be complete soon.
“The trumpeter swans usually arrive two weeks before the end of the season,” he said. “Well they arrived here about three days ago, so I’m guessing we have a week and a half left.”
