Author: Gabe Karns

Mid Season Update & Cornell’s Maple Climate Network

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Our sap season at the OSU-Mansfield sugarbush is well underway after tapping trees beginning January 29 and officially collecting sap by February 1.  While I still have time to change my mind, my current belief is that we nailed the “When should we tap” question with the right answer this year.  Our first run was a solid week long with solid nightly resets below freezing as this forecast basically fulfilled itself just like the weather prognosticators predicted.  Though overall sap volume was not as productive as it could have been, sap Brix started off at 2.1 and stayed ready right around 2.0.  By the end of the first run and through roughly Valentine’s Day, the woods got downright crunchy and dry highlighted by a few days that pushed temperatures almost up to 60 F.  During a second run of several days, flows remained average at best but Brix still hovered at a good sap: syrup making ratio.

As far as growing degree days go, we are almost exactly halfway to seeing silver maples break bud, and the rest of February and first couple days of March as currently forecast will likely push us right up to that threshold.  If I had to guess, we will be shutting off a couple main lines that are heavy “Rilver” (red x silver hybrids) in the March 1-5th range and hoping for another week or two production out of our sugar maples.

While there are a few nights with temperatures forecast for the low-mid 20s, it appears the OSU-Mansfield sugarbush will spend more nights above freezing as February drags into March.

Checking forecasts further north in towns like Chardon, Middlefield, and Geneva, all the way north to Ashtabula on the lakeshore, most nighttime temps are currently sitting on the wrong side of 32 Fahrenheit and the next 2 weeks offer only a few opportunities at hard overnight resets to stimulate good sap flows.  What March holds in store, I certainly don’t know.  And if another great sugaring weather pattern emerges, will our taps still be putting out lots of high quality sap if and when that occurs?  What I do know is this – Mother Nature has always and will continue to be the one holding the cards.  Even if my hindsight is happy with our initial tapping dates and I don’t eventually wish for a do-over, that is still no guarantee of a banner season.

As this year’s season ticks along, we’re excited to have an Ohio maple producer in Geauga County hosting a tree monitoring system for Cornell’s Maple Climate Network database.  You can track various metrics, such as Total Sap Production, Atmospheric Pressure, Tree Pressure, Rainfall, and Soil Moisture on this Dashboard.  Just look for the legend indicator so you can focus on some Ohio data and watch the season unfold from a single sugar maple tree’s perspective.  A great project with lots of potential, we’re glad Ohio can be a small part of the effort.

Buckeye Teaching Evaporator: The First Boil!

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Exciting developments at the Ohio State University-Mansfield campus!  We installed a teaching maple evaporator under our new pavilion near the research sugarbush and just completed our first boil last night.  This step is fairly monumental for Ohio State Maple, and there isn’t anything quite like the feeling of seeing that first draw-off.  Somehow we’ve got a grainy image of that moment last night to commemorate the experience!

First things first – a formal thank you to Roger and Suzie Gortner for continuing to do our production sap processing.  They have made exceptional maple syrup from our OSU trees for the past 5 years and will continue to be instrumental in that regard.  We literally could not do it without them, and we’re grateful that it’s an arrangement that works for both parties involved.

But now for the first time ever, we have our own evaporator.  No, it is not sized to keep up with a production woods of almost 1,200 taps, but it is perfectly sized for demonstration boils on a teaching scale.  With help from local producer Galen Smith from Mount Vernon, OH, our team set up an 18” x 66” drop flue evaporator early in winter of 2023-24.  After a test boil to dummy out a few variables (or maybe to dummy out the dummies…us!?), we put fire under sap concentrate on Wednesday, February 14th – Valentine’s Day.

Four 5/16″ lines kept sap flowing from our larger sap tank into a holding chamber that our reverse osmosis unit was drawing off.  We adjusted the PSI on our RO to almost perfectly sync and match the raw sap movement with our RO processing speed.  After some adjustments to align the 2 processes, we were taking sap from 2.1 to 4.6 Brix concentrate.  6 hours later, we were halfway there…

Eventually, we crept up to 7 degrees F over the point of boiling water.  You know what happens next.

A teaching evaporator with small-scale RO unit allows us to now teach via-demonstration tree-to-bottle workshops and seminars on an Ohio State campus, provide more complete tours for events like the upcoming Maple Madness event on Saturday, March 2nd (more on that in a second), and sets the table for a new Sustainability Theme GE course debuting in Spring of 2025 – Maple: A Sweet Taste of the Past, Present, & Future.

So yes, come visit us on Saturday, March 2nd at the OSU-Mansfield Maple Pavilion.  We are excited to host folks for pancakes and syrup between 10 AM-1 PM, tours of the sugarbush and nearby vernal pool wetlands all day long until 5 PM, and good fellowship with one another for the Ohio Maple Madness Tour.  Once you are on campus, just follow the signs!

We Are Tapped!

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We had a great turnout of folks to help tap maple trees on Monday and Tuesday at the OSU-Mansfield sugarbush.  A big thank you to Anthony Tambini and Rachel Coy – both former students who worked in the maple woods and returned for a fun day of tapping!  My gratitude to Marne Titchenell who appreciates maple amidst the larger sphere of wildlife, her Extension expertise.  Thank you Chelsea and Kris, current students who are working for me this semester.  Of course, Carri and Jake were there helping as always, and it was great to have Katie Gerber, one of ODNR’s State Service Forester, who came to get some hands-on maple experience too!  Many hands make light work and we are planning to shut the sap tank valve first thing in the morning and officially start our production season.  Happy sugaring to everyone already tapped, and may your crystal ball of weather forecasts and prognostications be clear if you are still trying to decide when to tap.

SLF Sap Survey – Citizen Science Opportunity

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If you are a maple producer located within 25-miles of a confirmed spotted lanternfly detection (and we have a good mailing address for you…big caveat!), you should be receiving an SLF kit in the mail today or certainly by the end of the week.

That kit will supply you with some helpful identification resources, a pickled SLF adult to call your very own, a postcard asking for a few Brix value readings from your maple trees, and a QR code link to an instructional video.

If you do not receive a citizen science kit, but you still want to participate, please do so.  We would be honored to have you contribute.

First, download this file of the SLF Postcard (PDF).

Second, watch this instructional video.

Third, collect as much data as you can during your 2024 maple season.

Fourth, seal up your printed datasheet in an envelope and mail to me at:

Attn: Gabe Karns
Sch of Env & Nat Resources
2021 Coffey Road
210 Kottman Hall
Columbus, OH 43210

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reply to this post or shoot me an email at karns.36@osu.edu.

 

Anyone Tapping Yet?

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When to tap?  That is the question.  And when it comes to maple sugaring, that is THE question.  Currently, we are in the holding position at our Mansfield sugarbush and thankful for the cold temperatures that have descended on the region.  The longer the woods stay cold, the closer our trees will get to meeting their chilling requirement, and the more optimistic I will be when we do eventually start our season.  Put simply, if trees don’t sleep well, they can wake up cranky!

When we look to the south along the Ohio River, I see more good signs of zero accumulated growing degree days since the start of the year.  Note, this does not account for any warm spells we had around Christmas.

With that map in mind, a peek at online chat forums like the Maple Trader’s Ohio Forum reveals that several folks are already tapped in part or in full (January 2nd in Ross County, another early report out of Muskingum County).  Looking even further south to states like Kentucky and West Virginia, only early tappers were rewarded with last year’s ultra-warm and sporadic 2023 season.  That likely pushed some producers to move their tapping date earlier on the calendar.  Still, others are crossing their fingers that last year was an anomaly and going with a more traditional schedule again for 2024.

Taking the forecast up top at face value and speaking directly to our Mansfield site, there aren’t many (if any) quality freeze-thaw cycle days for a truly big run in the next 2 weeks.  If we do decide to tap in a week or so, we should at least get all our lines flushed and spot check the vacuum on the system while we wait for better conditions to kick things fully in gear.

Come back next week for a post from Les Ober where he discusses the question of tap timing and the effects of El Nino as we all wring our hands and stare into muddy crystal balls in search of the right answer to our question!

Updates from the Sugarbush

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Based on the forecast, it’s hard to tell when our season will launch at the Ohio State Mansfield campus, but we’ve been hard at work readying the woods for whenever Go Time is.

3 years of single tree lateral lines came down from the ACER project that examined differences between sap production in Freeman’s (red x silver or “Rilvers”) maples.

Lateral lines in bad shape from wildlife damage or sanitation issues were replaced.  Some of these issues are pretty small and hard to spot unless you have your vacuum pump running.  Other wildlife damage…guessing raccoon or coyote here, pretty obvious.

Bucked rounds were hauled and split to feed our new demonstration evaporator at the also brand new maple pavilion (more on that later!).

We’re nearly done replacing all of last year’s spouts.

As we find drops and T’s that need replaced, we are shifting to a pin- or peg-style T so that we cut off the old spouts when taps are pulled at the end of season.

New trees that have grown into a minimum tapping size have been added to the system.  Surprisingly, our second main line that originally featured 99 trees when the tubing was installed in 2019 grew by 9 additional taps this year.  This was a good reminder to keep a diameter tape handy when getting your sugarbush ready for the season.  Sure, trees grow slowly, but they are growing and it’s sometimes surprising what just a few years can do when conditions are right.

End-line sensors are out gathering sunlight to keep our monitoring system operational, and we’re adding valves to the end of our main lines to facilitate a more complete and convenient sanitation regiment.

And our invasive species contract to control multiflora rose, particularly where it was worst along main lines 1 and 2, is already paying dividends with increased mobility and ease of access throughout the system.  A chest-rigged brush cutter was used to sever stem clusters in tandem with a timely and targeted application of glyphosate to the cut stem surfaces.  **This is a good reminder that any herbicide treatment in and around a working sugarbush should be done with caution!  Being cognizant of compound half lives, targeted treatment that stays where it belongs, and a well-trained applicator are keys to ensuring these sometimes necessary steps help and don’t hurt.**  Honestly, having the ability to freely negotiate through the woods wherever we please probably contributed to finding 9 additional taps along our second main line.  I also couldn’t help but notice that the majority of our lateral sanitation issues were cropped up around the second main line too.  Certainly trickle down penalties of thorny access because of a nasty invasive thicket infestation in the woods!

You literally could not walk through this area of the forest before, and the stem clumps that are left (and hopefully dead!) are the reason why.

One last major priority for this off-season will be attempting to remedy the long flat (at best!) stretches of main line between our pump house and where the majority of our taps start on main lines 4, 5, and 6.  I’m sure that will be a learning process complete with a couple of bumps in the road, but the goal is to perhaps install a couple lift options to show producers different ways of overcoming this common challenge in Ohio maple woods.  More on this last point later!!

Ohio Maple Day – Weekend Recap

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Ohio Maple Days was a great success again this early December with a wonderful slate of speakers and solid growth over last year’s attendance.  But before we get to Saturday’s main event, there was a lot of excitement that cannot be overlooked from that Friday.

On Friday afternoon, over 30 people participated in an exceptional value-added maple products workshop in Ashland University’s state-of-the-art teaching kitchen.  Several maple producers – namely Galen Smith, Dan Brown, Jen Freeman, and Fred Ahrens – demonstrated how to make delicious (and yes there was PLENTY of taste testing!) maple candy, maple cream, maple sugar, and maple cotton candy.  Contributions from numerous others behind the scenes must be acknowledged, and I even got to participate by contributing a maple venison breakfast sausage link exhibition at the end.  All participants left full of good bites to eat and full of knowledge, tips and tricks to either get into the value-added products game or improve their already developed skill set.  It is always so much fun to participate in a workshop where the speakers, as well as many of the attendees, are interacting back-and-forth with one another from beginning to end.

Friday evening’s main event was spearheaded by the Ohio Maple Producer’s Association – “One Sweet Gathering.”  Raffles and trivia night carried the audience through lots of maple-themed questions and more participants than not left with one or multiple prizes.  This event has become one of my favorite as it affords us an opportunity to interact with everyone in a low stakes environment – there is no agenda that has to be accomplished, no itinerary that is dependent on staying on time.  Lots of great conversation, laughs, and of course excellent food and drinks carried the night, and OMPA was able to raise a substantial sum for the OSU maple research program – an extremely generous gesture to push for more and better work on their behalf!  Thanks!!

For Saturday’s main event, Aaron Wilson – Buckeye Universe’s State Climatologist – keynoted with an excellent hour-long talk discussing the implications of El Nino’s resurgence on sugarmakers.  Regulatory updates and labeling requirements from Ohio Dept. of Agriculture, the latest on spotted lanternfly, and a primer on tubing and vacuum systems from Mike Lynch of CDL rounded out the morning’s agenda.

The chefs at Ashland University continue to outdo themselves and offered up yet another showstopper of a lunch.  As entrees and desserts were enjoyed, Roger & Suzie Gortner and Paul Snavely from the Snavely Sugar Shack were overwhelmed by congratulations on receiving the Charles Keiter Award.

Saturday afternoon offered a split agenda with a Beginner or Advanced track.  Spot checking attendance in each, most talks were roughly half and half throughout the final sessions.  One highlight for us was sharing the Sugarhouse Videos created at Gingerich Brothers & Sperry LLC, Seldom Seen Farms, and Double G Maple.  Those short videos will be featured in the digital Maple Toolbox which is almost completed and will be available soon.  Other Advanced talks focused on NRCS cost-share programs for enhanced sugarmaking sustainability, crop tree management in a sugarbush, and coupling gourmet mushroom cultivation with your maple woods.  The Beginner track started in the obvious place – how to identify different maple species, and it then progressed through different sap collection methods, a crash course on evaporators and reverse osmosis, before concluding with economic and enterprise planning.

Last but certainly not least, I have to give a shout out to Galen Smith for leading a team of folks to host the John Berry Memorial Syrup Contest.  Bruce Kavanagh took first in the Delicate class, Goodell Family Farms for Amber, and Aggie from Gingerich Brothers & Sperry led the Robust class.  The Dick Schoor Award for best syrup from a new or small producer was awarded to Bruce Kavanagh, and the Hilton Farly Award was won by Aggie Sperry.

We hope you can join us next year (actually this year…Happy New Year!) on December 6 for the 2024 edition of Ohio Maple Days!  SAVE THE DATE!!

Ask Santa for a New…Hydrometer!!

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This year’s Ohio Maple Days welcomed back the free hydrometer testing service that folks had come to expect from Dr. Gary Graham’s days of leading the annual Ohio maple event.

As part of the tri-state (OH – WV – PA) ACER grant, we built out at least 1 full hydrometer testing kit for each state to ensure accurate hydrometers are in the hands of maple producers in order to produce top-quality maple syrup.  A big thanks to Carri Jagger for leading the charge on this initiative, we figured that she and I tested somewhere in the neighborhood of 75-90 hydrometers during Saturday’s program.  These are rough estimates, but I would guess around half the hydrometers tested within +/- 0.2 Brix of perfect.  1 out of every 10 hydrometers read heavier densities than they should have, and the remainder – close to 3 or 4 out of every 10 – read light compared to the standard.

For a bit more complete explanation and how to make sense of the Hydrometer Testing Bookmarks, let’s explore a couple scenarios.

The first scenario is that your hydrometer reads the exact same as our standard testing hydrometer.  This bookmark shows a best case scenario and this is exactly what that means.  We chose to test everyone’s hydrometer against a test solution of 60.0 Brix.  In other words, we mixed a test solution to read 60.0 Brix on our standard hydrometer and checked everyone else’s instrument against the truth of that standard.  Choosing 60.0 Brix as the test line is somewhat arbitrary, we could have chosen 62.0 or 64.0 or 65.7 if we were really feeling inspired.  The bottom line is that within a certain range, an inch is an inch, and if your ruler is really truly measuring 24″ where it says 24″, the same ruler should also be spot on when measuring something 30″ long as well.  The same concept applies here.  Known density is 60.0, your hydrometer reads 60.0, and your glass, paper scale, and hydrometer is in great condition.

Heavy Syrup LLC and Wimpy Syrup & Co. are both less than ideal hydrometer testing scenarios.

Wimpy Syrup & Co.’s hydrometer is reading heavy even though their hydrometer is in good condition from a wear and tear perspective.  The effect of having a hydrometer that reads heavy is that you’ll likely be producing syrup on the underside of optimal density.  In other words, you’ll pull your syrup off early because of the heavy reading and may not finish all the way up at the perfection standard of 66.9 Brix.

Heavy Syrup LLC has the opposite issue.  Because their hydrometer is reading light, syrup will probably get left on the evaporator a tad long and finish at a higher density than the industry standard.  Hence, we can see that the directional error in hydrometer reading leads to syrup that finishes in the opposite direction.  A heavier reading than truth leads to lighter syrup. Lighter readings lead to heavier syrup.  The additional issue with Heavy Syrup LLC’s hydrometer is that the paper scale has become twisted, likely as a result of a glue dot detaching, eliminating any hope of accurate density readings in the future.  Throw that hydrometer away.

Hopefully this post sheds some light on why hydrometer testing is important.  A big thanks to all the producers who brought one or two or five hydrometers to be tested.  We will plan to offer the same service at Ohio Maple Days going forward and add a second testing beaker for sap hydrometers at next year’s event.  Syrup density is one of the key diagnostics to ensure we produce quality maple syrup and accurately reading density is an important skill as a sugarmaker.  If you have a hydrometer that you know is off, toss it in the garbage and ask Santa to put another in your stocking ASAP.

 

North American Maple – Massachusetts Recap

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Just about this time a month ago, I was in the middle of the North American Maple Syrup Council’s International Conference hosted in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.  To take a deep dive into maple syrup for a few days, it felt appropriate to surrounded by maples showing off their fall color and driving through towns with “Established By” dates in the 1600 and 1700s.

Thursday was tour day, and attendees had two different itineraries to choose from.  Although I had to miss out on the 3rd and 4th stops of the tour, the first 2 alone made the time worthwhile.  Maple Corner Farm generously opened its doors to their state-of-the-art new sugarhouse and restaurant/cross-country skiing outpost – they are a living testament to how revenue diversification can support a robust business plan.

The second stop to Ioka Valley Farm was equally impressive as they are one, if not the, largest maple producer in the state of Massachusetts.  The lunch they served up from their restaurant was excellent, and all the tour hosts were eager to answer questions and dialogue with anyone curious about their operations.

The early departure reason that cut my tour short was to be back for the maple specialists meeting that afternoon at 3 PM.  Climate change and how to adapt under those pressures was the topic of discussion, a fruitful one at that.  It is an honor to work alongside respected colleagues at other institutions to brainstorm research ideas that have practical why does it matter moxie.  Of all the topics covered, sugarbush management received the most attention and votes of priority.  What does that mean?  Building a house that does not blow away or shift off its foundation as tree health, vigor, recruitment and distribution are stressed in the future – in short, resilience.  Thursday was end capped with the Taste of Massachusetts banquet and great social exchanges between all who gathered.

Friday felt more like work as I was on the hook for a research presentation highlighting the last 3 years’ work on the red x silver maples and the single-tree canister work.  2-3 concurrent sessions carried the day, and dinner featured the maple contest awards, Hall of Fame inductee announcements, and more stimulating back-and-forth with fellow attendees.

If Friday’s presentations were more research focused, then Saturday’s talks could be characterized as more how-to and hands-on practical.  The quality of presenters was evident throughout, and it’s hard – having now been to one – imagining not attending every single one of these events that my schedule will allow into the future.

Welcome Jake!!

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We are excited to introduce Jake Nicholson, Ohio State Extension’s new Maple-Christmas Tree hire, to the Ohio State Maple site community.  This non-timber forest products position has been a long-time in the making, and we are thrilled to welcome Jake to the team.  Jake is a former student, and personally speaking, I was excited to see his name in the hat and enthusiastically supportive of his hire.  Recently, I was able to spend a couple days with Jake at the North American Maple Syrup Council in Massachusetts, and I tossed 5 questions Jake’s direction; below are his replies.

Tell us about your background.  I know you pursued a major in natural resources – what was that exactly and what drew you to that career?

My first job was working at Camp Lakota, a local scout camp back home in northwest Ohio as a staff member when I was 15.  It became such a transformative experience for me, both in helping me to grow personally and in learning how much I loved being outdoors.  From there I was hooked, I wanted to learn about conservation, preservation, management, all of it; but most importantly I wanted to share that passion with as many people as I could.

Not to get too personal, but do you a significant other?  Kiddos?  Pets?  Both?

I am recently married to my wonderful wife Maria.  We have two pets, a goofy golden retriever named Ryder and a very friendly, but judgmental gray cat named Jasper.

What excites you most about maple?

Oh, so many things, to start with I absolutely love the community I have met so far. Everyone is so welcoming and willing to share what they know; their generosity is overwhelming, and I look forward to visiting more sugar shack and bushes soon.

What your favorite talk from the North American Maple Syrup Conference in Massachusetts?

The Best Practices in the Sugarhouse practical skill workshop was my favorite talk. As wonderful as all the talks I attended were, most focused on the big picture of sugarbush management. Glenn Goodrich did an amazing job of presenting actionable advice to make the best syrup possible once the sap is in the sugarhouse.

If there is one thing you want maple producers to know about you, what would it be?

As steeped in tradition as this industry is, it must be strange to have someone in my position who was not brought up within it. I want to assure all the maple producers of Ohio, big and small, that I am determined to get up to speed with the realities of modern sugaring. I am already taking steps to do that and am incredibly grateful for the way that so many of you have opened your sugar shacks to me and taught me about how you do what you do. I look forward to many more visits in the future and creating programs and resources to promote this industry to future generations.

Now that you’ve gotten to know him here, go out of your way to introduce yourself at Ohio Maple Days on December 8th and 9th up in Ashland.  If you still need to register, visit the link for Saturday’s main event and Friday night’s banquet social organized by the Ohio Maple Producers Association.  Friday’s confections workshop is already sold out and at capacity, but keep your eyes open for additional offerings on that topic in the future.

Welcome Jake!!