It seems over 400 maple syrup producers in the Waterloo-Wellington area will have to wait a little longer for their season to begin.
“With it being as cold as long as it has been, a lot of these trees are froze through solid,” said Fred Martin, president of the Waterloo Wellington Maple Syrup Producers Association.
However, Martin told the Advertiser some producers will be surprised how quickly sap could start flowing.
“As soon as we do get the right temperatures, the right fluctuation, the thought is that it will probably start quicker than some people are thinking,” he said.
Martin was one of several speakers at the syrup producers association’s ceremonial first tree tap of the 2014 season last Friday at the farm of George Martin in Waterloo Region.
This year the annual event was held in conjunction with the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary on April 5.
Festival officials say the event annually welcomes about 60,000 people, making it the world’s largest one-day syrup festival. Festival-goers annually consume about 180 gallons of syrup, all of which is supplied by the Waterloo Wellington Syrup Producers Association.
“They’ve been a great partner and support for the festival,” said past festival chair Cheryl Peterson, who drilled the first tap hole of the season at the Feb. 28 ceremony.
Asked about the popularity of the event, Martin noted, “Waterloo-Wellington actually has more taps than any other county does in Ontario.”
Todd Leuty, an agri-forestry specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, confirmed Waterloo-Wellington is one of the top two maple syrup producing areas in the province, along with Lanark County.
Across Ontario there are between 2,800 and 3,000 commercial producers, said Leuty.
He was at the tree tapping ceremony to speak to producers and, if they desired, to test their maple syrup. He explained all maple syrup sold in Ontario must be a minimum of 66°Brix (or percent sugar).
“It’s just an industry standard that is pretty much set by the collective agreement by the producers,” said Leuty.
“It’s important to have that amount of sugar concentration because it helps prevent spoilage organisms from getting in.”
Sap comes out of a tree with a sugar content of about two per cent and is then boiled until it reaches at least 66%. It takes about 30 to 40 litres of sap to make one litre of maple syrup.
That is why area producers are hopeful the weather won’t have a huge impact on sap production.
“Every syrup season is pretty hard to predict,” said Leuty. “You never know, really until the end of April, how long the season will be, how many runs there will be, and that sort of thing.”
Ideally, producers would have liked a repeat of 2013.
“Last year was fantastic,” said Martin. “We had the right amount of freeze-thaw action. We had a season that started on time … it was probably the best season for most producers in this area that they’ve ever experienced.”
A regular maple syrup season runs from about March 1 to April 10 or 15, but this year will be a different story.
“Normally we are started tapping and maybe even making syrup by now,” Martin said at the Feb. 28 event. He added the long range forecast indicates the cold weather could hang around for a couple weeks, pushing the start of the season into mid- to late March.
“The danger is the further we get into March, the shorter the season it will be,” said Martin.
Leuty said if the cold stays around longer and the warm weather moves in suddenly, it could be a short syrup season.
“The weather needs to thaw in the day and freeze at night – over and over and over again. That’s what gets sap flowing,” Leuty explained.
Mapleton producer Cleon Weber, of Riverside Maple Products north of Wallenstein, said he thinks it will take an extended warm weather cycle before the sap starts flowing.
“I’m kind of thinking it’s going to be a short season,” Weber told the Advertiser on March 3.
He agreed 2013 was the ideal season, noting his operation last year produced upwards of a 1,000 gallons of syrup – 33% more than his average of about 750 gallons.
“This year will probably be lower than [the average],” Weber said.
For more information on the local syrup producers association visit www.ontariomaple.com/pages/waterloowellington.
