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More Benefits of Maple: Monthly Maple REVIEW

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September’s REVIEW piece bangs the same exact drum as our August post.  Put simply, the benefits of maple syrup are VAST, and this article by Faez Mohammed and team expand the discussion beyond nutritional to also include pharmacological and sensory attributes.  how do big trees make baby trees and what factors promote or inhibit that process.  In case you are interested in reading the full article which was published just over a month ago, “Nutritional, pharmacological, and sensory properties of maple syrup: A comprehensive review” is available here.

While this article is not presenting new research, the authors are doing the hard work of sampling the existing literature and drawing together a synthetic summary of what many many others have discovered in the past.  95 total research articles factor into this particular review.  Here are some interesting facts and tidbits that I found interesting as I read through the paper.

1) A major reason that maple syrup has a long list of nutritional benefits and something like white granulated sugar has a long list of known negative impacts is that maple syrup is NOT processed by humans as a refined sugar, instead maple syrup is processed as a source of carbohydrates.

2) Maple syrup is often compared to other natural sweetener alternatives.  Maple syrup contains 60.5 grams sugar per 100 total g.  This is less sugar than honey (68 g), molasses (74.7 g), and of course high fructose corn syrup (75.7 g).

3) When we say something is an antioxidant, we are referring to a substance that reduces free radicals that are loose like a “bull in the china shop” wreaking havoc on cells and cell membranes.  For something to arrest and capture free radicals is to possess antioxidant properties.  Maple syrup is known to have antioxidant properties that come primarily from 2 types of compounds.  Without getting overly technical and going into specifics, early season syrup has anti-oxidizing properties due to 1 set of compounds, and syrup made from sap harvested from the second half of the season relies on a different type of compound to chase down and capture free radicals.  That is cool!!

4) When we say something has antiproliferative properties, we are referring to a substance that keep cancer cells from multiplying quickly and without impediment.  It turns out maple syrup has these properties too!  But some maple syrup is better at slowing the growth rates of cancer cells than others.  Past research has found darker color maple syrup has a greater ability to slow harmful cell production than lighter grades of syrup.  Certain phenolic compounds register higher in darker colored syrup, and it is believed these substances are the active agents at play in antiproliferative defenses.

5) If you can get your hands on this article, it is absolutely a great resource.  I could list a number of additional points that reflect the general tenor of #3 and #4, but suffice it to say this post would grow real long real fast.  Again, here is a link to the abstract and research article in full.

I want wrap up this REVIEW by focusing on a small subsection within the larger article titled “Effect of maple syrup production processes on its nutritional value and component bioactivity.”  In other words, what should the maple syrup production process look like to enhance and bolster the nutritional and medical benefits of finished maple syrup product?  Here are a couple quick takeaways in closing.  Antimutagenic (preserving DNA integrity) properties seem to be highest in the earliest lightest color syrup made in the season.  Darker syrup grades are better equipped to fight cancer cells.  Drying syrup (making some value-added products) reduces total phenolic content (the agents responsible for antiproliferative defense) and antioxidant capacities.  This is my own two cents, but I get the growing sense that investigating the intricate and minute details of maple syrup in terms of its chemical structure, molecular compounds, and different properties, traits, and characteristics is like a medical explorer penetrating the deepest and darkest most remote corners of the tropics where previously undiscovered plant species may hold the spark to the next game-changing pharmacological revolution.  Remarkable stuff!!

 

 

PA Maple Boot Camp Recap

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Maple Boot Camp rotated over to Pennsylvania for 2023 after we hosted it last year in ’22.  The agenda delivered a wealth of information to 20+ lucky attendees who came from backgrounds of “I’ve never tapped a tree before” to “I’m looking to expand into that medium-large producer category.”  Speakers from Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania served to make Boot Camp a huge success – a special thanks to Mike Lynch of Baer Brothers Maple for hosting the in-field workshops in his sugarbush and sugarhouse.

Kate Fotos, Les Ober, and Mike Rechlin taught a maple grading seminar to attendees who elected to show up early for a pre-Boot Camp workshop.  Day 1 covered discussions of tree identification,  site and woods evaluation, sugarbush inventory, and tree health assessments, and spanned indoor sessions with outdoor hands-on lab time.  After a wonderful catered dinner, Steve Childs tackled night one of value-added maple products and demonstrated maple sugar and maple cotton candy.  Here is a link to the New York State Maple Confections Notebook that is a testament and legacy to his lasting impact on the maple industry across the region.

Day 2 kicked off with a flipped itinerary to accommodate weather conditions that were less than favorable.  Kudos to everyone’s flexibility and Scott Weikert’s boldness to turn the agenda on its head.  It is hard to imagine the day going much better than it did!  While night two of maple confections featured maple cream and maple candies back in the meeting event space, the vast majority of the day took place in the sugarbush at Baer Brothers Maple.  Sap collection methods and detailed demonstrations of installing and maintaining main line, lateral line, and drop and spout configurations filled the morning.  After a bagged lunch, best practices related to tapping and sanitation practices took center stage.  Semi-structured lectures interspersed with lots of hands-on demonstrations and opportunities for workshop attendees to try their own hands at different skills and techniques carried the day.

While I was not able to stick around for the third and final day, everyone once again caravaned out to Mike’s sugarhouse to see his reverse osmosis and evaporator set-up.  This is such an important component of workshops, but due to time of year, sometimes gets the short end of the stick.  Not this time.  Mike had his system primed with water to get all the steam and the burn which takes an off-season experience to the next level.  Attendees were lucky to enjoy an afternoon closing session on financial planning, operation economics, sales and marketing from one of the best in the industry – Mark Cannella from UVM.

Planning for Maple Boot Camp version West Virginia is already afoot for 2024 – as details begin to fall into place, you can be sure we will share all of the relevant details!

Maple Nutrition: Maple Monthly REVIEW

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You might have spent some of the last month or so under a rock if you have not caught at least a glimpse of month’s REVIEW article, actually presentation.  Much ado has been made of the research presented at the 2023 American Society for Nutrition conference, “Substituting refined sugars with maple syrup decreases key cardiometabolic risk factors in individuals with mild metabolic alterations, a randomized, double-blind, controlled crossover trial.”  The hubbub surrounding the research has landed the work across major news outlets, morning talk shows, health blogs and podcasts, and of course, the Maple Syrup Digest.

Do some searches for Dr. Andre Marette and Dr. Marie-Claude Vohl’s recent research trial or open the latest issue of the Maple Syrup Digest, and you will have tons of information at your fingertips.  Here’s the skinny on the research.  You or I would recognize the study participants as normal-looking, average Americans – not fitness models, but certainly not too unhealthy either.  Everybody in the trial participated in both sides of the experiment, but participants did not know when they participated in each half.  The beauty of this design is that each participant serves as his or her own control for optimal comparability.  In one half of the experiment, participants supplemented their daily nutrition intake with a flavored sucrose syrup, and then participants flip-flopped to consuming a couple tablespoons of the real McCoy – maple syrup.

Here are the key takeaways put as simply as possible:

1) Maple syrup helped participants manage their blood sugar levels, which has obvious implications for diabetes-related risk.

2) Maple syrup consumers had a lower blood pressure, which reduces risk for cardiovascular disease.

3) Maple syrup slowed the accumulation of android fat, a double whammy health benefit.

In short, this new research trial is some of the clearest and most irrefutable evidence for maple syrup health benefits yet!  In a more wordy paragraph and excerpted from a 2022 review paper on maple syrup, here’s a great synopsis of the health benefits of maple.

Of the many natural sweeteners, maple syrup is recognized as a much superior alternative to refined sugar for not only its mineral content, but also for its high concentration of phenolic compounds with bioactivity properties, i.e., anti-mutagenic, anti-radical, antioxidant, and anti-cancer.  Compared to dextrose, corn syrup and brown rice syrup, maple syrup brings about lower glucose and insulin responses, which make it a healthier substitute for refined sugars in our diet.

Memorize that block quote to recite next time a potential customer is waffling at whether or not to pony up some hard-earned cash for your delicious maple syrup.

Upcoming Maple Events

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Working from long-range calendar planning to close-range events, we are excited about the upcoming slew of maple events.  There is literally something for everybody!

Join us for the 2023 Ohio Maple Days in Ashland, Ohio, December 8th and 9th for 2 days of instructional workshops, food and fellowship, and a Saturday full of technical talks for both advanced sugarmakers and beginners.  We kick things off at 1 PM on Friday with a value-added workshop that will teach participants how to make maple sugar, maple cream, maple candy, maple cotton candy, and even some maple-infused breakfast sausage links.  The Ohio Maple Producers Association is hosting a maple contest with banquet blowout Friday night with the full conference agenda on Saturday.  During Saturday afternoon, we are excited to offer a beginner’s track to explore the basics of maple and an advanced track that will focus on sugarhouse design, marking your woods for a crop tree release timber harvest, and more.  And by popular demand, we are bringing back hydrometer testing – so please mark your calendars for December 8th and 9th.  We will post the registration details as soon as they go live.

Lake Erie Maple Expo is slated for November 10-11 in Albion, PA.  This popular event has an excellent list of sessions and speakers on tap for participants.  I for one have never been in attendance but will be changing that this year.  I hope to see a few familiar faces there!

The week prior to LEME on November 3rd and 4th, the Ohio Maple Producers will be hosting their annual meeting – stay tuned or check their website for details!

Sturbridge, Massachusetts, will be the hosting location for this year’s North American Maple Conference from October 25-28.  This is the BIG show with an absolutely packed slate of tours, meetings, technical workshops, and great meals.  You can find registration details here.  If that’s not enough for you, the International Maple Grading School will be offered October 29th and 30th just down the road in Grafton, MA.

A bit more local, we are excited to be offering a tandem webinar/workshop in collaboration with the University of Kentucky.  The webinar – evening of September 11th –  will be a basic introduction to all things maple in order to whet new producers’ appetites and lure them out to the in-person event in Boone County, KY, on Monday, October 16th.

Sandwiched in between those 2 events, please consider joining us down in southwestern Ohio Saturday, September 16th for a workshop in partnership with the Cincinnati Zoo.  Registration details are live on the Ohio Woodland Stewards Program website.  In conjunction with the workshop, participants will have a chance to shop and browse at the Zoo’s Native Plant Nursery there on site at Bowyer Farm.

And last but not least, Pennsylvania is hosting Maple Boot Camp on September 6th-8 prefaced by a Maple Grading Workshop the morning of that Wednesday.  Boot Camp is the brain child of the 3-state OH/PA/WV, and it is the Keystone State’s turn to host.  We are excited about this in-depth, deep dive into maple sugaring and hope to repeat the success of last year’s Boot Camp in Ohio.

I’ll be sprinkling reminders here and there as different registration deadlines loom, but I hope to cross paths with you at least once, if not multiple times, throughout the fall maple programming season.  Lots of options to choose from!!

Maple Regeneration: Monthly Maple REVIEW

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July’s REVIEW piece lands on the subject of maple regeneration.  Put simply, how do big trees make baby trees and what factors promote or inhibit that process.  This review comes courtesy of a doozy of a 2021 titled paper “Complex drivers of sugar maple (Acer saccharum) regeneration reveal challenges to long-term sustainability of managed northern hardwood forests.”  The team of authors, all from the mitten-shaped state to the north, was led by Catherine Henry from Michigan State’s Department of Forestry.

It goes without saying that it requires a whole bunch of seeds to hit the forest floor in order for a single tree to reach maturity decades later.  But just how complex is the regeneration struggle for sugar maples?  After all, despite a lifespan of 300 years give or take a century, if mature sugar maples do not replace themselves with seedling, sapling, and teenager sugar maples, the ultimate goal of passing one’s genes on to the next generation will fail.  Henry et al. examined research plots in 141 different forest stands to dig into factors related to sugar maple regeneration throughout northern Michigan.  The study sites were all managed with single-tree selection silviculture for decades, a forestry practice that is commonly regarded to be a great tool for regenerating and recruiting sugar maple.  It is important to note potential geographic differences between the study’s region and Ohio; not everything will necessarily apply to our state, but we can learn from their findings as well.

Sugar maples are generally considered to be shade tolerant tree species, and that is a fine way to categorize them from a 30,000 feet above the surface of the earth perspective.  Zoomed in up close however, a simple shade tolerant descriptor is insufficient.  Sugar maple regenerate best under conditions of intermediate canopy openings, and successful production of seedlings and saplings is optimized in larger single-tree gaps that are maintained or increased through time.  The truth is that while maple seedlings are technically shade tolerant, more light is required as regeneration grows into sapling sizes and beyond.  Prolonged deep shading stunts out maple regeneration, and it is important to remember that shade doesn’t just come from overstory trees; ferns, dense midstories of beech, and invasive plant infestations can all starve a cohort of seedlings of the light they require to become saplings and ultimately larger trees.  In addition to growing space, variables of deer browsing pressure, site quality (related to soils), and competing vegetation were considered.

The very first line of the study’s Results section reads as follows: “Stand-level sugar maple regeneration was highly variable within and among size classes.”  It goes without saying that nature contains tremendous variation, and this statement reinforces that idea.  Examining one forest stand and anticipating the next forest to behave identically is foolish, and taking one study and assuming that it directly applies to a novel new region is equally foolish.  All that said, there are absolutely some lessons to be learned.

Maple regeneration was most successful at intermediate basal area levels and at sites with intermediate quality.  Imagine an upside-down U where the peak is in the middle and the start of the curve and end of the curve are low, that’s essentially what the graph would look like.  This plays well with the Goldilocks analogy that we like to use for sugar maples – sugar maples favor conditions that aren’t too _______ but also aren’t too ________, just like Goldilocks didn’t dive straight into a bowl of scalding hot or freezing cold porridge.  The study had some educated guesses as to why this may be.  Excessive basal area (a forest stand that is overstocked) and too many sugar maples in the overstory casts deep shade that even the shade tolerant maple babies can’t survive.  Too few mature maples in the overstory may be limited by seed availability and more easily overwhelmed by deer browse pressure (see photo above).  Low quality sites for sugar maple, duh, did not have a lot of vigorous healthy sugar maples.  But high quality sites were often associated with higher deer densities that likely led to overbrowsing of seedlings and smaller saplings.  An additional explanation is that overstory maples grow so quickly on high quality sites that canopy gaps quickly close thus reducing understory recruitment.

The study is published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, and authors are encouraged to write a rather in-depth closing section called “Implications for management.”  In these parting paragraphs, Catherine Henry and her colleagues boldly comment that single-tree selection silviculture – a system that ought “to produce ample sugar maple regeneration” – is failing.  While the study’s results were highly variable, factors of deer overbrowsing, site quality, light limitation, and seed availability confounded attempts to successfully recruit sugar maples to the sapling size class in nearly 70% of plots.  The solution is not easy or obvious.  While the authors point to silvicultural harvest methods that open more growing space and release more light into the understory – namely uneven-aged group selection and even-aged shelterwood harvests – they acknowledge a different approach may exacerbate other problems (denser shrub densities, higher success of undesirable species).  Regardless of harvest method, a parting recommendation was that managers take deer population management seriously through increased hunting take or use of exclusion practices, such as wire fencing or natural slash walls.

Bringing this review home to Ohio, what are the over-arching takeaways.  While there are undoubtedly more to consider, I’ll quickly point to 3 recommendations.  #1 – Deer can destroy even the best laid plans, our state mammal HAS TO BE managed.  The best possible silvicultural plan can quickly unravel with too many deer.  #2 – Cutting a single tree here and a single tree there is not likely to recruit your next generation of syrup-making trees.  #3 – Work with a state or credentialed forester to develop a management plan for your woods.  They will understand the complexities and caveats to navigate a timber harvest and help you balance your objectives against the impacts of the past, the conditions of the present, and the goals for the future.

 

Out of the Woods Webinar UPCOMING

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The Out of the Woods webinar series continues this Thursday night, July 20th at 7 PM out of our partner Future Generations University.  The Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area (AFNHA) is featuring on this month’s event and will have agroforestry experts speaking to the life of a forest and the benefits these different living organisms bring to the ecosystem.  It might not be as maple-focused as it usually is, but the focus on holistic forest integrity should be integral to any maple producer’s mindset.

The AFNHA “conserves, interprets and promotes forest heritage to enhance landscapes and communities” throughout regions of Appalachia.  Though their focal area are specific counties of Maryland and West Virginia, there is much to be learned from their unique approach to asset-based tourism and community development in heavily forested landscapes.  Here is a beautifully done webpage within their site that walks through the seasonality of different forest edible plants and derivatives.

Register Here Now.

Pennsylvania Maple Boot Camp: REGISTER Now

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Maple Boot Camp is going on the road for 2023 and pit-stopping with our neighbor to the east: Pennsylvania.  Scott Weikert and the good folks at Penn State University are hosting this year’s event from September 6-8 in Somerset, PA.  The agenda is fairly similar to last year’s event that we hosted at the OSU-Mansfield campus during the month of June.

To kick things off, attendees can sign up for a bonus maple syrup grading workshop morning of Wednesday September 6th.  The registration link is here.

The official Maple Boot Camp will kick off right after lunch that same day and continue for two and a half days through Friday mid-afternoon.  We hope to see you in Pennsylvania for this signature maple educational opportunity.  It is an excellent deep dive for beginners or small producers thinking about growing their operation.  Veterans will undoubtedly learn a thing or 3 though too as they interact with maple experts and producers from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York.

The Pennsylvania Maple Camp provides intensive, hands-on training for beginner and intermediate maple producers.  The 3-day curriculum begins with sugarbush assessment, then builds sequentially through all phases of maple syrup production from sap collection to boiling, bottling and sales.  Participants will gain the skills necessary for the safe, efficient, and profitable production of maple products.  Camp will include classroom lectures as well as outdoor, hands-on exercises.  Come one, come all, see you in Pennsylvania for Maple Boot Camp!

Maple Cost-Share Assistance – NRCS EQIP Program

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Special thanks to Keith Libben & Timothy Fulks for writing this article for the OSU Maple site!

The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) has long been a well-known resource for agricultural producers in Ohio, especially with our livestock producers and our crop farmers.  Their Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is the flagship conservation program for NRCS and has provided millions of dollars in incentives to producers over the years to address resource concerns that negatively impact soil, water, air, and animal health.

EQIP works by providing farmers, ranchers, and forest owners financial incentives to install conservation practices that help address resource concerns.  Common practices funded include cover crops, manure storage systems, and nutrient management planning.  But did you know that EQIP can now assist Ohio’s maple syrup producers?  Recent changes to the practices available in Ohio intended to improve air quality can now provide some assistance in the sugar shack.  The practices available are intended to improve air quality by improving efficiency in the sugar shack and in turn reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels or wood.  Practices that are currently eligible include reverse osmosis systems, sap pre-heaters, and improved efficiency evaporators.

Interested in getting some financial assistance to make some upgrades at the sugar shack?  This is the general process:

  • Producers need to reach out to their local NRCS field office or Soil and Water Conservation District and get an application in for EQIP.
  • From there, NRCS will coordinate with you to set up a time to visit your sugar bush and assess your operation. Other professionals may be necessary to determine what practices may be appropriate for your operation.
  • NRCS will use this information to develop a conservation plan and cost share estimate. Once this is complete, your application will be submitted for ranking and consideration for funding.
  • NRCS will reach out to you if your application has been selected for funding. Now the ball is in  your court to decide if you want to sign a contract for the funding assistance.  If you sign the contract, you agree to install the required practices per all relevant NRCS standards and specifications.
  • Once installation of the practices is complete and verified, you’ll receive your contracted financial incentive.

It is important to not think of EQIP as solely a coupon to get a steep discount for a new evaporator or reverse osmosis unit.  Such narrow thinking will probably not result in a competitive conservation plan.  Rather, leverage EQIP to design a more holistic approach to improving your overall property.  Additional woodland, wildlife, or cropland practices can also be applied to increase your plan’s ranking score and up the odds of being successful.  Talk to your local NRCS office today to see how they may be able to help!

Additional Questions:

How much cost-assistance will I receive?  NRCS re-evaluates costs of implementing practices on a yearly basis.  For most successful applicants, they will receive their contracted payment of 75% of the projected cost upon completion.  For historically underserved applicants, the cost share rate is set to 90%.

What are the maple-specific EQIP practice codes?  Practice 228 Agricultural Energy Assessment and Practice 374 Energy Efficient Agricultural Operation are the codes that can be leveraged for evaporators, sap preheaters, and reverse osmosis units.

When do I need to get my EQIP application submitted?  NRCS accepts new applications on a continual basis, meaning there is no true deadline.  However, submitted applications do join a stack of documents for the next ranking session which typically occurs in late fall.

 

Remember to join us on Saturday, December 9th for the 2023 Ohio Maple Days.  One of our featured afternoon speakers this year will discuss EQIP’s cost-share opportunities for maple producers in detail.  Registration should go live in late July-early August.

Spotted Lanternfly: Monthly Maple REVIEW

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June’s REVIEW piece is going to come with a request, but first the topic – spotted lanternfly.  The main question of course is this – will spotted lanternfly impact sugarmakers?  The answer put simply and to quote Brian Walsh from Penn State University’s Extension team, “we don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know.”  While that answer may not be comforting or assuring, it is absolutely certain that lots of work is being done to pursue better answers and there is plenty you can be doing as an individual producer to get ready for your likely “not if, but when” encounter with the invasive spotted lanternfly.  Why do I say “not if, but when”?  Look at this distribution map sourced from New York State’s Integrated Pest Management website.  Spotted lanternfly moves with efficiency and moves with coverage.  I don’t see many holes within the infested range where it has not been found.

“Impacts of short-term feeding by spotted lanternfly on ecophysiology of young hardwood trees in a common garden” was published in 2022 by Emily Lavely and a team of researchers among whom the aforementioned Brian Walsh is a co-author.  The paper can be found in the journal Frontiers in Insect Science.

Here is a webinar recorded through Penn State University last November that spotlights some of the key findings from this paper as it relates to maples and maple sugarmaking.  The recording is pushing 2 hours long, but the meat and potatoes of how this research experiment fits in to our current understanding of how spotted lanternfly impacts maples can be found between the 41:00-48:00 minutes mark.

Before I summarize the relevant take home message from the Lavely et al. study, it is worth noting that the experiment used small sapling-sized trees to document the following findings.  What would those findings have looked like if similar work was conducted on larger diameter tapping-sized trees?  In a nutshell, some short-term intense feeding by spotted lanternfly in the autumn impact stored sugars in silver maples immediately, but has no near-term effect on red maples.  Looking at the following spring after overwintering, silver maples rebound but the red maples in the study showed sugar reductions of up to 40%.  Unfortunately, sugar maples are an even larger question mark, but a fall feeding preference list for spotted lanternfly definitely includes the perennial gold standard species for making maple syrup.

So, what can you do in the near-term to brace for impact, be a tiny part of the solution, and be a first observer/reporter for your area?  Here are 3 practical things to consider.

1st – Learn how to identify tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima) and CONTROL it.  Tree-of-heaven sits atop the summer feeding preference list for spotted lanternfly and is an excellent (or terrible, depending on your perspective) location to observe spotted lanternfly.  Tree-of-heaven is an invasive species in its own right and is notoriously aggressive and difficult to eradicate.  The Ohio Invasive Plants Council has a nice fact sheet that can help you learn how to identify tree-of-heaven, here’s the Ailanthus control sheet from Woodlands Stewards, and Rutgers University has another fantastic resource for how best to control this non-native pest.  Your first action item in short – identify tree-of-heaven and do your best to eliminate it.  By eliminating the preferred host for spotted lanternfly summer feeding, you reduce the chance of your nearby maples being next on the menu when autumn arrives. 

2nd – Indicate your support to the IR-4 project that you want to see more spotted lanternfly research conducted focused on potential impacts to maple and maple syrup production.  This requires you logging on to a website and formally indicating your support, but please scroll down to the bottom of this post and follow 6 quick and simple steps to engage IR-4 and put this topic front and center on the funding agency’s radar for the next round of awards issued in September.  Again, to hear more about this why IR-4 mechanism is so crucial, listen to minutes 41-48:00 on the Penn State webinar linked here.

3rd – Keep your eyes out for spotted lanternfly and report suspected observations immediately.  Here is a current map of Ohio counties with known spotted lanternfly infestations.  You can link to the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s reporting hotline through this ODNR webpage.  While most press releases show the adult winged spotted lanternfly, detections during the hottest summer months are more likely to be the nymphal stages (shout out to NCSU, my alma mater for the nice graphic below).  Being on the front line of early detection helps ensure agencies can respond as quickly as possible to new outbreaks and share information as effectively as possible.

 

6 Simple Steps to Support Spotted Lanternfly Research through IR-4. 

1) Visit this link: https://ir4app.cals.ncsu.edu/Ir4FoodPub/IS_Search

2) Click the down arrow on the upper-left yellow box labeled ‘IS Number’ and select the option ‘IS00441’

3) This will auto-populate Brian Walsh’s research proposal to pursue effective and safe spotted lanternfly controls on the bottom part of the screen.  Click the live link ‘IS00441’ under the box “SUPPORTING/SIMILAR REQUEST”

4) You will be transferred to a new page where you should enter your email address and go through the verification code process as directed.  You will be given the option to register for future use, or to not have your information saved for future use.  Your choice here does not impact your ability to voice support for this project.

5) Enter more information about yourself (enter “Individual Maple Producer” under Affiliation if you’re unsure how to fill in that field)

6) Finally, comment into the “Additional Reason for Need” box and click Submit.  The text box has a small character limit that won’t allow you to type more than a couple complete sentences.  This is what I submitted, feel free to copy-paste or create your own short indication of support.

Spotted lanternfly (SLF) is poised to impact maple producers, particularly those producers with a prevalence of red and silver maples in their sugarbush. Many Ohio maple producers fit this scenario and need options to combat SLF in order to preserve profitability and tree/forest health.

For more information: Look back at posts recapping Amy Stone’s presentation at 2021’s Ohio Maple Days on spotted lanternfly: Part 1, Part 2.

Change Over a Century: Monthly Maple REVIEW

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Here is May’s edition of our feature Monthly Maple Review.  Once a month, we review a research article to spotlight key findings, investigate curiosities, and uncover important implications for Ohio’s maple producers.  Please comment below if you have thoughts, ideas, insights, or questions.  If you stumble on to a new maple article and want to see it highlighted in a Monthly Maple Review, please reach out to me via email – karns.36@osu.edu.

Phenology, put simply, is the study of nature’s timing.  A couple years back, we did a special article series on the use of growing degree days (GDDs) to monitor and predict the progression of trees and shrubs in Ohio.  Typically, sugarmakers are most keyed in and interested in whether maple trees are early, right on time, or late to produce the sap runs we convert into maple syrup.  But phenology gets at much more than just the time of year we make syrup.  Leaf out, dormancy, seed development, emergence of different insect pests, fall color change, and leaf drop are all elements of the annual cycle of plant phenology.  Phenology is a topic we keep coming back to you, but it’s interesting, it’s important, and it’s complicated – so we are back again!

This month’s article, published in March of this very year, is titled “A Century of Climate Warming Results in Growing Season Extension: Delayed Autumn Leaf Phenology in North Central North America.”  Authors Kellen Calinger and Peter Curtis (both Ohio State University researchers in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology) published their study in an open-access journal called PLoS ONE.  Open-access meaning, if you want to read the full paper, you can access the article here.

The methodological approach for this research paper is particularly interesting and clever.  A farmer named Thomas Mikesell from Fulton County, OH, collected data from the years of 1883-1912, meticulously recording phenological and meteorological information that was preserved in a massive 700+ page publication that is still accessible today.  Kellen and Peter, the modern day researchers from Ohio State, used Mikesell’s observations as a baseline to compare data from 2010-2014, a full century later.

Among the tree species selected in their study (they chose 7 in all), no Acer maple species were chosen unfortunately.  However, the beauty in this study’s approach is the real focus on this month’s review.  It is both elegant and simple to think that someone’s observations over 100 years ago could serve as such a significant monument in time to understand how conditions shift and change through the decades, even centuries.  Sometimes science gets complicated, complex, to the point of absurdity it seems.  This is a pleasant reminder that there is profundity in the simple as well.  Write down your observations, allow time to pass, make more observations, and compare.  Simple.  Done.

I believe there is a lesson here for us all – take notes, jot down curiosities, record all the important dates from every sugaring season.  And most importantly – save those scribbles and notes in a place where not only you, but the next generation too, can find them and propel your own personal learning journey.  Just in case you don’t recognize the common name “white maple” – that’s silver maple.

If you’re from northwest Ohio, or even just from the upper quarter latitude of Ohio, I strongly suggest you peek at this table to see how your observations jive (or don’t jive!) with Mikesell’s observations back in the late 1800s.   What conclusions do you draw?  Are there big differences for each observational category – first fully formed leaf, in full leaf, in blossom, fruit ripe, and complete change of foliage?  Or are some categories different, but some phenomenon right on schedule and unchanged?  It is important to remember that phenology is driven by a host of factors (as we noted in our March Monthly Maple REVIEW) – shifting climate is one factor, but precipitation plays a role, active and recent weather events/trends, photoperiod (fancy name for day length), and more.  Observations that have not changed much on the calendar are likely responding to more static and unchanging factors such as photoperiod.  Observations that do differ, those are more likely triggered changing climate and other more dynamic factors.

If you’re not from that part of Ohio, dig up those old records that your dad’s dad kept back when he ran the sugarshack in years bygone.  Rifle through the old drawers of dusty old spiral-bound notebooks.  Flip over the back of black-and-white photographs to see if there is an inscription that reads “first boil, 1952.”  All those memories are also records, and we learn about the present when we look to the past.  So I guess this review is less of a review and more of an admonishment – bear witness to the power of data collection and long-term record keeping.  Participate in keeping notes.  If nothing else, those notes will be curiosities to be pondered years down the road.  At best, meticulous notes and records can help you make sense of the dynamic, cluttered, and information-dense world that we live!