Maple Events

Fall Maple Tour is HERE!!

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Kudos to Carly Gavlak, star of the show in a Cleveland Fox 8 News interview, to representing the Fall in Love with Maple Tour beginning this Saturday, October 9th.  For a complete list of all 14 participating farms, visit the page on the Ohio Maple Producers Association’s website.

At the Ohio State Mansfield research woods, we will be hosting a free pancake and syrup breakfast from 10-noon on Saturday followed by sugarbush tours and conversation around maple until 6 PM.  If you want to resupply your own syrup inventory, we will have OSU Maple Syrup available for sale as well.

Online Maple Business Planning Courses Available

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University of Vermont is offering two online short courses for current and prospective maple producers this fall.  Each course includes four classes (1.5 hours each), once per week, in addition to assignments that get participants completing real time analysis and making immediate decisions to enhance their business.  Mark Cannella, Extension Associate Professor, will instruct both courses.  Registration is now open!

  • Maple Business Planning  This four-session course guides participants through key aspects of preparing a business plan. Each session covers concepts in strategic planning, analyzing risks, marketing and planning improvements. Students prepare sections of their own plan over the four-week timeframe of the course. Register Here for Maple Business Planning. Course Dates: 7:00 – 8:30 EST pm EST on Tuesdays: 10/26, 11/2, 11/9 and 11/16.

 

  • Maple Financial Planning  This four-session course guides participants through the basics of financial statements and financial planning concepts. Topics included cash flow, balance sheets, sales forecasting and calculating cost-of-production. The goal of this course is to identify important numbers and where to find them in order to make powerful decisions for your business.  Register Here for Maple Financial Planning. Course Dates: 7:00 – 8:30 EST pm EST on Thursdays: 10/28, 11/4, 11/11 and 11/18.

Registration LIVE for Ohio Maple Days, December 11th

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REGISTER NOW!!!

Join us Saturday, December 11th for a day of all things maple!  We will highlight research from Ohio State’s two ACER research grants and introduce you to some of our research partners from West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  Spotted lanternfly is now in Ohio so learn its impacts and how producers can help.  We will also talk about how to improve your public events at the sugarbush, and a presentation on a new opportunity for selling bulk syrup.  The program runs from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM with registration opening at 8:30.

The full slate of presentations is as follows:

Ohio’s ACER Grants
Ohio Maple Producer Survey – Sayeed Mehmood, Ohio State University
Reds, Silvers, Rilvers and Sugars – Gabe Karns, Ohio State University,

Spotted Lanternfly in Ohio: How Maple Producers Can Help – Amy Stone, OSU Extension

Forest Management Planning – Kathy Smith, Ohio State University

Is Agritourism in Your Future? – Rob Leeds, Ohio State University Extension

Authentic Appalachia – Mike Rechlin, Future Generations University

Tapping Red Maple – Abby van den Berg, University of Vermont, Proctor Maple Research Center

10/9 Fall into Maple Tour Stop at Ohio State Mansfield

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The 2021 International Fall into Maple Tour is scheduled for October 8-17.  On Saturday, October 9th, you have a great chance to visit with members of the Ohio State Maple team at Ohio State Mansfield between 10 AM-6 PM.  Visitors will be able to tour the research sugarbush, purchase OSU maple syrup, and see some new maple educational materials that we are excited to debut.  From 10 AM-noon, we will be serving a pancake breakfast to tailgate for the Ohio State versus Maryland football game that starts at noon.  Look for the event tent in the Ohio State Mansfield parking lot #8 and come see us.

Southern Syrup Symposium Coming Soon

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Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 Delta variant, this fall’s Southern Syrup Symposium has been suspended until further notice.  Organizers are working to figure out if a virtual gathering later in the fall can be organized.  We will be sure to update when we know more.

This year’s Southern Syrup Symposium needs to be on your radar especially if you are a producer in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, or of course Ohio.  The Southern Syrup Symposium brings together maple experts from all over, but the programming always has a little special emphasis on maple across the southern geographic tier.  This year’s event starts at noon on Friday, September 24th with your choice between 2 field workshops before the full-day program on Saturday, September 25th.  Lots of food and fellowship is mixed in throughout.  Talk topics cover the gamut from forest management to quality tasting syrup-making tips, climate impacts on maple and research updates – including ours!

Registration is open now and is available here.  See you in Morgantown!

July-October Webinar Series through UVM

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Beginning Wednesday, July 21st, the University of Vermont is offering an excellent line-up of 8 webinars spanning into October.

The full topic line-up includes Total Yields from Red Maple (7/21), Maple Start-up Profiles and Financial Benchmarks (7/28), Best Practices for Birch Syrup Flavor (8/11), Sugarbush Inventory Methods (8/25), Sap-only Enterprises (9/15), Binding Contracts and Legal Agreements (9/29), Maple Forests and Carbon (10/13), and Northeast Forest Land Taxes and Programs (10/27).  While not all topics will apply directly to Buckeye State maple producers, many do and promise to be highly informative.

Full details with registration links are available here.

Maple Programming Survey – Please Participate!

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Last week, we shared the exciting news that Ohio Maple Days will be making its IN-PERSON return on December 11th in Ashland, OH.

Ohio Maple Days Save the Date Flyer – December 11, 2021

This week, we want to invite you to participate in a survey to help inform statewide maple programming into the future.  By ranking your interest level across different maple-related topics and providing specific content ideas, we plan to use survey feedback to mold and shape high quality maple programming at Ohio Maple Days and other events – outreach and education that is most useful and most valuable to maple producers throughout the Buckeye State.

Click here to participate anonymously in the survey.

Ohio Maple Days Announcements

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We are excited to announce that Ohio Maple Days will be returning IN-PERSON on December 11th after a necessary virtual COVID-19 interruption earlier in January.  Mark your calendars for December 11th in Ashland, Ohio, and get ready to rendezvous with maple producers from around the state to hear great talks from excellent speakers, browse a selection of maple vendors, and reconnect face-to-face with your maple community.

Switching Ohio Maple Days to a one-day main event and moving from January to early December is not exactly going back to the way things were pre-pandemic, but the decisions were collectively made after much discussion between Gary Graham, the Ohio Maple Producers Association board, and the rest of the Ohio State maple team.

Please read the following letter from Gary Graham expressing his delight in the 2+ decades of organizing Ohio Maple Days, and his optimism for the future of Ohio Maple Days moving forward.

Stay tuned for registration details in the next month or two.  Check back next week to participate in a survey that solicits your topic preference for maple programming at Ohio Maple Days and other events in the future.

From Tree to Table Maple Webinar

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Please enjoy this 1-hour presentation led by Kathy Smith, Les Ober, and Gabe Karns.  This opportunity was made available through the Woodland Stewards Friday in the Woods webinar series.  Nearly 150 attendees listened to a wide coverage of beginner maple topics followed by a full hour of Q & A that ranged from more technical aspects of boiling and filtering and processing syrup to more inquisitive investigations of why the freeze-thaw cycle is necessary for making sap flow and if tapped wood has any market potential as lumber.