Author: Gabe Karns

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!

 

Upcoming Maple Workshop – June 15th!

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Come join us on June 15th at Holden Arboretum’s Working Woods for the maple workshop – “Woodland Owners & Maple Production: Is It an Income Opportunity for You?”

Offered through Ohio State’s Woodland Steward program, we are excited to introduce woodland owners to the ins and outs of maple syrup production.  Is your woods suitable?  How involved do you want to be?  How much are you willing to invest into such an endeavor?  We will start inside and finish outside looking at equipment options and how to set-up a woods for maple production.  The class fee is $40 and includes lunch & materials.  Please consider joining us and REGISTER here.

Talking with the Trees: Monthly Maple REVIEW

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A brief introduction to this relatively new feature – Monthly Maple Review, which is now in its third month.  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.

After a more technical and heavy academic discussion of factors influencing bud break in sugar maples during our March review, I decided to explore a peer-reviewed article that draws from a much different perspective.  Biosemiotics is the study of signs and meaning in living organisms and systems (as defined by Springer Publishing – Springer has curated a quarterly journal dedicated to this topic for 15 years).  Biosemiotics, put more simply, asserts that life is based on signs and codes – a statement that straddles the line between science and philosophy.  “Food, Care and Sugar Maple Stand” by Jonathan Hope was published in 2021 in the journal Biosemiotics.  This article does not present any experimental research or new study, but rather challenges us to think about maple trees and our relationship with maple trees in a different light.

When we anthropomorphize, we assign human-like attributes to non-human objects or organisms.  For instance, a talking candlestick or feather duster imparted with human emotions in the movie Beauty and the Beast is a great example of anthropomorphizing.  In recent years, popular books such as The Hidden Life of Trees have popularized the idea that trees may have the ability to communicate and respond to one another through local and more extended networks.  This progressive notion certainly challenges a more narrow view of trees that relegates them simply to living cells constituting trunks, roots, leaves, and an annual cycle of growth.  Sugarmakers certainly hold trees in higher esteem than just such a rudimentary and crude description, it is after all maple trees that we put on a pedestal to admire, cherish, and prize them!  But trees communicating?  In the more human sense, that might still be a stretch for many of us.

The maple producer who understands the multitude and complexity of factors that impact a maple tree’s growth, health, vigor, and day-to-day performance through a sugaring season is keenly aware of just how responsive maple trees are to stimulus.  Jonathan Hope – the article’s paper – proposes that this keen ability to respond to changing signals and environments is a testament to the mindfulness of maples.  Enjoy the following passage.

“Running a sugar shack requires that producers learn how the biological engine of the trees works, or more precisely, that they understand the behavior of the trees…Understanding how maples groves function also requires that the sugarmaker learns, or becomes familiar with, what [Aldo] Leopold calls the ‘language’ of wildlife – through ‘semiosis’…this language could refer to many types of sign relations.  In other words, learning the language of trees depends on one’s readiness to admit that meaningful things happen to/in them.”

When we view trees as having and responding to a unique set of signals and languages, we also begin realizing that trees are connected to the soil, are dependent on and connected to the subsurface and surface water cycles, are potentially harmed and injured by non-native pests, are life providers and habitat for many native organisms, are intimately linked not just to the seasons but also to minute changes in weather and climatic conditions, …  What are those intimate links, those connection points – of course, these are the essence of ecology.  Everything is linked to everything else.  Are humans interwoven and part of that web and outside and distant from that web of connections?  I’ll let you answer that.

If we anthropomorphize and grant trees the ability to communicate, to respond to external stimuli, and to profoundly influence organisms in their sphere of influence, then perhaps it’s not a stretch to take the following quote serious.  “Humans can take care of each other, of other animals, of plants and natural environments; and inversely environments, plants and animals take care of themselves, and sometimes, take care of humans.”  I don’t believe this way of thinking is a big stretch for many maple producers.  We absolutely love our trees, and we understand that we are profoundly and deep rooted to our maple woods.

Here’s one final line from the article – certainly a far departure from a technical and verbose experimental study.

“So many relations interlace in a can of maple syrup…Maple sugar producers intervene on the forests and tinker with their semiosis, harnessing, and participating with the ‘energy pathways’…of food and care.  Eating and caring have always been marked by commensality.  Maple sugaring shows once more that this togetherness extends far beyond the limits of the human.”

March Maple Programming Recap

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Because the weather put us out of the syrup-making business by March 1st this year, we delivered a crowded schedule of March maple programming at a variety of events instead.

Kicking off the month, Kathy Smith and I tag-teamed a talk at the Woodland, Water, and Wildlife (WWW) Conference.  We spoke to a roomful of attendees about the maple toolbox that has emerged from our tri-state USDA ACER grant.  The maple toolbox is designed for foresters and natural resource professionals to bring maple sugaring to landowners as a management option.  From site and tree evaluation to a crash course in regulatory requirements for maple producers, the toolbox is gaining traction as an excellent resource across its intended Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania reach.  The 1-hour presentation at WWW teed up a full-day workshop dedicated to just the maple toolbox for middle of the month.

2 weeks later, I spoke to a group of 30 undergraduate students from the Buckeye Learning Community at OSU-Mansfield.  While students filled up their plates with pancakes covered in Ohio State maple syrup, we discussed the concepts of stewardship and sustainability in balancing the need for natural resources while protecting our environment.  Maple is absolutely a perfect candidate topic to explore these themes.  Once bellies were full, we went outside to get students some experience identifying maple trees in the woods.  With a handful of maples identified just outside the building, everyone got some tapping practice while we collected some sap to check Brix with our digital refractometers.  The sap sugar content exercise worked beautifully as a suppressed maple struggling to get out of the midstory posted a 1.4 Brix and was blown out of the water by the most dominant sugar maple in the stand – the maple monarch put up a stellar 3.4% sugar content.  It was eye-opening for many students to see the connection between a healthy forest and production potential as measured by Brix.

March 15th was a full day in-service workshop for 20 professionals.  The deep dive into the maple toolbox coupled an indoor morning session with an outdoor afternoon session.  Consulting foresters, extension educators, agents from local Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and more participated.  A big thanks to Les Ober and Carri Jagger for helping us teach that workshop.  While we talked about the in’s and out’s of how to make maple syrup, the workshop focused mostly on evaluating sites for feasibility and production potential and focusing on tree/forest health through the lens of sugarbush management.

Finally, a tandem of Saturday presentations at the Ohio River Valley Woodland & Wildlife Workshop focused on introducing landowners to sugarbush planning and maple economics.  I shared a presentation entitled “Maybe Maple? A Beginner’s Guide to Planning a Sugarbush” that was followed by a remote presentation from Dr. Sayeed Mehmood dedicated to the dollars and cents side of maple operations.  It is exciting to the southern tier excitement of maple spread, and engaging with an audience that welcomed attendees from Kentucky and Indiana to Loveland, Ohio, was a great opportunity to spread the good word of maple.

 

What Triggers Bud Break? Monthly Maple REVIEW

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A brief introduction to this new feature – Monthly Maple Review – we review a research article once each month 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.  And 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.

“Bud Break in Sugar Maple Submitted to Changing Conditions Simulating a Northward Migration” by Ping Ren and colleagues.  This article was published in 2021 in the journal Canadian Journal of Forest Research.

In our first Monthly Maple Review, we looked at producer attitudes and behaviors regarding climate change and its projected impact on maple.  For this our second installment, we focus on how a simulation experiment predicts climate change will effect bud break in sugar maples.

As climate shifts and range-restricting thresholds follow, plants and animals must adapt and keep up with changes or risk being left behind.  Many organisms are well-suited, at least from a mobility standpoint, for keeping up – take birds and their gift of flight for instance.  Other species likely face serious challenges; the American pika is commonly pointed to as an example.  Pika are small, marmot- or groundhog-like creatures that live in treeless alpine habitat in the Rocky Mountains.  It is easy to imagine pika being literally stranded on mountain peaks above timberline unable to migrate and keep up with shifts in suitable range.  Many plants are also considered less adaptive to shifting conditions and may not be able to move into higher latitudes or elevations necessary to keep up with suitable growing conditions; sugar maples are no exception.

In emergency scenarios, assisted migration is a solution whereby humans literally help other organisms keep up with shifting climate conditions.  Already, experiments have been conducted with many plant species, including some trees such as the whitebark pine, to verify suitability of growing conditions beyond the current limits of the species distribution.  Will sugar maple or other maple species need a special assist from us?  No one knows for sure, but studying what factors drive bud break is a small step to understanding if they are likely to need our help in the future.

The essence of Ping Ren and team’s experiment was to examine bud break under controlled conditions while varying temperature and photoperiod (also known as day length).  The experiment’s most basic hypothesis was that “photoperiod outweights temperature in initiating bud break when the chilling requirement in unfulfilled.”

To understand the study’s results, we first need to wrap our minds around 3 main environmental factors, or signals – the variables we believe most plants are responding to when they wake from winter dormancy and start to stir towards bud break.  First, winter chilling – more intense and longer periods of cold during the heart of winter contribute to chilling.  This deep freeze is what resets the annual clock of trees and influences the trigger of growth reactivation.  Perhaps it is worthwhile to think of chilling as similar to a human experiencing a prolonged session of deep sleep.  Second, spring temperature – this is just what it sounds like.  In a simple system, cooler spring temperatures may wake plants from deep sleep more slowly than a rapidly warming and sudden onset of spring (check out a series we did in winter 2022 on growing degree days to better under the role of spring temperature).  And finally, photoperiod – more commonly known as day length.  The most important thing to note on this final factor is that while any given year might vary in terms of winter chilling or spring temperature, length of day is fixed and will always be fixed regardless of where climate change takes us.

While each factor in isolation is relatively easy to understand, it is the complicated interactions between winter chilling, spring temperature, and photoperiod that likely determine the actual timing of bud break in a species.  This study ran 2 experiments that essentially confirmed the hypothesis that sugar maple bud break is more determined by photoperiod than by spring temperature when the requirement for chilling is not met.  Let’s put that another way – during winters that do not put sugar maples into a deep sleep for long enough (winter chilling), day length has more of an effect on bud break timing than how cool or warm spring temperatures are.  In other words, the experiments confirmed the authors’ central hypothesis.

Let’s unpack that a bit more and talk about some take home messages.

Resetting a sugar maple’s internal clock is accomplished primarily by meeting the chilling requirement – being cold enough for long enough.  When that chilling requirement is not met, it takes additional and louder signals to wake up a tree from dormancy to initiate bud break.  While this might sound a bit counterintuitive, the fact is that waking up a tree from a deep sleep is easier and more predictable than trying to wake up a tree that has been tossing and turning in its winter bed.  Under changing climatic conditions, warmer winters may result in unmet chilling requirements that ultimately result in delayed bud break thereby shortening growing seasons.  But remember, winter chilling is just the first consideration.  What about spring temperatures?

At face value, most sugarmakers understand the effect of a warm spring – trees break bud faster.  In a cool spring, buds stay closed longer and the sap season might last a bit longer too.  In a worst case scenario, climate change wreaks complete havoc on winter weather not allowing sugar maples to adequately chill and temperatures jump back to springtime highs so quickly that any sap season is effectively crowded right off the calendar.  That’s where day length seems to play a crucial and important role.

Think of day length/photoperiod as a speed governor on a go-cart.  I hate so-called governors growing up.  I wanted to ride my go-cart at top and dangerous speeds, but my parents set the speed governor so that I could only drive certain speed limits.  When spring temperatures warm abruptly and it seems that the sugar maples might break bud extraordinarily early, length of day pumps the brakes and slows down that process regulating it closer to normal.  Essentially, photoperiod may be a crucial regulating factor to keep sugar maple bud phenology more on track than would be expected otherwise.  In the authors’ own words – “Because day length will not change under climate warming, photoperiod becomes ultimately limiting when bud break in sugar maple occurs too early.”

So where does that leave us?  Will sugar maple need our help in assisted migration as conditions change faster and faster into this and coming centuries?  Time will tell, but if this study teaches you nothing else – you can certainly walk away with 2 big takeaways.  First, trees are remarkably complex organisms.  And second, trees have a few tricks up their sleeves!

Climate Change & Maple: Who Cares?! Monthly Maple REVIEW

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A brief introduction to this new feature – Monthly Maple Review – we review a research article once each month 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.  And 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.

“A Changing Climate in the Maple Syrup Industry: Variation in Canadian and U.S.A. Producers’ Climate Risk Perceptions and Willingness to Adapt Across Scales of Production” by Anna Caughron and colleagues.  This article was published in 2021 in the journal Small-scale Forestry.

The maple syrup industry is on an undeniable collision course with changing climatic regimes – shifting tree composition, more unpredictable and earlier sap seasons, and potential reductions in yield are all staring back when we look into the future.  This list represents just the tip of the looming iceberg, and more southerly producers anticipate an even rockier path forward as evidenced by some impacts that we can already talk about in the present tense.

Anna and her co-authors are not the first team to survey climate-related issues amongst producers, and perhaps we will review other similar papers down the road.  But one interesting angle, beyond the normal suite of factors like age or education or political affiliation, that this study examined was producer scale.  Does producer scale impact willingness and ability to adopt climate-adaptation practices in maple production?  Let’s first clarify what a climate-adaptation practice is.  Consider the effects of shifting tree composition in Ohio.  That shift will likely lead to increased dominance by red maples.  Adapting to that effect would be to tap a diversity of maple species, not just sugar maples.  Failing to adapt to shifting tree composition could lead to reduced tap quantity because of unwillingness to tap anything except a sugar maple.

With that point clarified, two over-arching findings stuck out to me.  First, nearly 90% of all surveyed producers agreed that maple syrup production is closely linked to climate, and only 15% of small producers (<2,000 taps) believed climate-induced impacts would be a net positive to their operation.  How often does that lop-sided a percentage of folks agree on something?  Not often.  Second, larger producers are more willing to adopt more climate-smart adaptation practices than medium or small producers.  And guess what, political affiliation had nothing to do with any of the above.  Yes, you read that correct – climate and maple is apolitical.

Before we dive into the specifics, know that it took 10,000+ taps to be categorized as a large-scale producer in this study.  Quite frankly, most US producers in this study were small or medium, and most Ohio producers would certainly be “small.”  A final caveat, before we dive into a few specifics, is that among the 354 survey respondents in the study, only 12 hailed from the Buckeye State.

Canadian producers, which are also more likely to be the “large” producers, are more apt to fertilize their sugarbushes and practice intensive silviculture, but significantly less likely to increase the number of trees they are tapping.  I can see the practice of fertilization.  Personally, I believe all maple producers – regardless of scale, should practice active silviculture in their maple woods.  The goal of active silviculture after all should be healthy maples!  The last point about tap quantity is a hard one to understand…until you discover that rules enforced by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers prohibits most producers from increasing their tap count.  Given that most large producers are also Canadian, the pattern of stubbornly maintaining tap count then makes some sense.  I certainly learned something new with that fact pointed out to me.

“Medium” producers were more likely to tap earlier, implement rigorous sanitation practices, and stay up to date on latest research finding than “small” producers.  Multiple factors could be play as “large” and “medium” producers increasingly differentiate from “small” producers.  I’ll quickly highlight just one factor as I grapple with the study’s findings.  Some “small” producers are undoubtedly hobby producers.  Making syrup is fun and as soon as it seems like work, well…where’s the fun?  I can easily see why an individual producer with 100 or 2 taps would decide not to invest in high vacuum efficiencies.

Putting aside scale of producer and applying the lens of producer age, we learn that tapping red maples and using high vacuum systems are less likely among older producers.  Only focusing on the practice of tapping red maples, this fits within the pattern of a traditional no-no generationally passed down.  Not until more recently has University research been dedicated to documenting production potential in alternative maple species.  What’s that saying about “old dogs?”

I’ll wrap this review up by pointing a finger back at myself – a maple educators.  This sentence from the study speaks for itself, “Only 20.9% of producers…thought that information on climate change impacts on the maple industry was easy to access.”  Yikes, that is a huge wake-up call and harsh criticism for the University community.  Hopefully this site can help address these knowledge gaps for Ohio maple producers, and this Monthly Maple Review series is part of the solution.

3 Paths to Increasing Profitability

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Ohio Maple Days 2022 did not disappoint.  The food was fantastic, the vendor room crowded, and the presenters shared a wealth of knowledge of expertise across a wide range of subjects.  To wrap up the day, we had a trio of talks approach the goal of increasing profitability from 3 different perspectives.  A big thanks to Mike Rechlin, Les Ober, Mark Cannella, Carri Jagger, and Rachel Coy for finishing off our Maple Days program on a high note!  Be sure to mark your calendars for next year’s conference December 8th and 9th!

The first talk, led by Carri and Rachel, explored how to increase profitability by focusing on maple products.  What is the breakdown of selling maple syrup in smaller and smaller volume units?  What value-added products have the highest margins?  Are there alternative maple products that you have never even heard of before?  Detailed breakdown after detailed breakdown, producers could see their input costs and “shrink” as well as returns across various value-added maple products, from maple cream and maple candy to sugar and cotton candy.  Beyond the typical suite of value-added products, the talk also provided a quick overview of just how creative one can get using maple as an ingredient in products ranging from lip balm and hand lotion to marinades and sap seltzers.  The over-arching takeaway: it might be more work to create value-added maple products or sell your syrup in smaller units, but the reward is likely increased profits.

Mark Cannella took the second perspective in a totally different direction.  If your personal operation is stuck at a ceiling of 500 taps and you cannot expand staying on your own property, consider leasing maple taps or purchasing maple sap to increase your overall profitability.  The basis of Mark’s presentation can be explored more fully at Maple Manager in the form of sap pricing calculators, leasing guides, and lots more.  Exploring how sap leveraged from elsewhere can achieve economy of scale to justify a big equipment purchase or simply grow the volume of syrup for your market, leasing must be considered.  Another provocative idea Mark raised was that of multi-owner partnerships.  In other words, what would it look like for you to merge aspects of your maple operation with other local maple producers.  In the woods or in the sugarhouse, the possibilities for crafting a creative business structure is limited only by the imagination.  Staying true to best practices, legal agreements, and thorough cost-benefit analyses BEFORE diving in is always the key!

Finally, Mike and Les brought it all back home and put the emphasis where it ultimately must begin – maximizing the efficiency and profitability of the woods you manage.  After all, it is a common axiom that the sugarhouse is the place you spend your money, but the woods is where you make it!  Their talk leveraged Future Generations University’s work via an ACER grant dedicated to production and profitability.  To model best practices and engage producers at the unit of an individual and unique operation, researchers have been engaged in consultations that seek to identify room for improvement, equip producers to improve and enhance their operation, and then follow up to track progress.  While the talk could easily be the outline for an entire textbook or a week-long workshop on maple sugaring, it is sometimes good to step back from the details and look down from the bird’s eye view for some much needed perspective.

Regardless of a producer’s scale or experience, there was something for everybody in the 3-part profitability module to close our 2022 Ohio Maple Days event.  We look forward to seeing you next December 8th and 9th but hope to cross paths with you before then!

Borers, Feeders, and Galls Oh My!

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Ohio Maple Days 2022 did not disappoint.  The food was fantastic, the vendor room crowded, and the presenters shared a wealth of knowledge of expertise across a wide range of subjects. Dr. Curtis Young, Entomologist, Extension Educator, and Associate Professor, expanded our knowledge regarding maple pests.  Many that most of us were already aware of, spotted lanternfly or Asian long-horned beetle for instance, and lots of lesser known pests.  Before we get into a few highlights, be sure to mark your calendars for next year’s conference December 8th and 9th!

Any attempt to summarize Dr. Young’s talk would fail due to the sheer amount of information that he is able to share in such a short amount of time.  And no notes!  Truly a wealth of knowledge.  Rather than attempt a synopsis, this is a great opportunity to share some general resources and up-to-date information for some of the more alarming maple pests we face here in Ohio.

University of Kentucky Extension has a great webpage that quickly catalogs a wide range of known pests across 4 general categories – leaf feeders, sap feeders, borers, and galls.  While most maple pests are just that – pests, similar to how most of us view the average mosquito, a few present a real and present danger.  That said, if your maple trees are stressed already, a relatively harmless pest can be the proverbial straw that breaks a camel’s back.  Moral of that last sentence, practice healthy silviculture and sugarbush management to ensure your trees are healthy and vigorous.

Asian long-horned beetle are always mentioned in these presentations.  Thankfully, in Ohio at least, control and eradication of Asian long-horned beetle is a success story that we seldom get to herald in the fight against invasive species.  While we keep our eyes out for future infestations, spotted lanternfly has rapidly expanded its range and our state records now show several counties with positive detections.

An excellent website to stay abreast of issues facing plant, shrub, and tree health is Buckeye Yard & Garden onLine where Dr. Curtis Young and many other experts from Ohio State University Extension provide “timely information about Ohio growing conditions, pest, disease, and cultural problems.”

More Upcoming Maple Events

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We’re tapped and the production system is flushed and tight with great vacuum.  Many thanks to our students and technicians for getting the 2023 sap season underway!

Join the OSU Extension team on March 1st for the annual Woodland, Water, and Wildlife Conference.  Kathy Smith and Gabe Karns will be presenting a seminar early in the agenda titled “Woodland Owners, Maple Syrup, and the New Maple Toolbox.”  Book your whole day with us though as many other interesting topics will be covered including buckeye tree conservation, aquatic plants and wetlands, Ohio snakes, spotted lanternfly updates, urban coyotes, and more.

If you are a consulting forester, work with a natural resource agency, or are otherwise employed within the environmental and natural resource career field, please join us on March 15th for an in-service workshop customized for you!  Learn how to assess a woodlands potential, what equipment will be needed, what options are available to a landowner interested in maple sugaring, and what else is needed to establish an operation as an income opportunity.