Tapping and Tubing

Maple & Popular Mechanics…???

by at

Maple for the masses – of course that’s our goal when we think about the tasty product we produce and the many millions of people who aren’t yet customers but should be!

Maple for the masses – from a researcher’s perspective, there’s always the goal for our work to be translated from research into applied guidance that can be adopted by producers all over the landscape.

Maple for the masses – from a general knowledge and curiosity perspective, producers love to tell others about the maple culture and practice that we love so dearly.

One could argue these elements leverage Curiosity into Consumption which eventually turns into Concern for the resource – a beautiful way to think about how our human curiosity can find engagement that ultimately leads to a stewardship ethic around an issue or topic or resource.

Very seldom does a single piece of media capture all of these perspectives and more so wonderfully.  Sticking with the personality of Aaron Wightman from Cornell (see last week’s post about the Sweet Talk Maple Podcast), I think you’ll agree this Popular Mechanics article is a real doozy.  Enjoy!

Dealing with Storm Damage

by at

A big thanks to Kathy Smith, Program Director of Extension-Forestry, for putting together this great resource of how to cope with storm damage.  Unfortunately, it has been a reality for far too many maple producers in the past 3 years, and I’m sure for many more before then.

Click back into our archives to read a post after the 2022 derecho that ripped through north-central Ohio in mid June.

Lots of work went into creating this resource-rich PDF, so I’ll simply link it below for download and use.  Enjoy!

Storm Damage Article – Smith & Karns 2024

We Are Tapped!

by at

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.

Anyone Tapping Yet?

by at

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

by at

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!!

Tap Talk Webinar

by at

This is super short notice, but Les Ober and Mike Rechlin are co-teaching a Taps, Spouts, and Spiles talk on Wednesday night at 7:00 PM.  All you need to do is click this ZOOM link to attend.

The presentation will summarize research on maple taps, spouts and spiles.  The webinar will then move to an open discussion on your experiences with the benefits and drawbacks of the various models on the market.  It is getting close to time to order your supply for the coming season, so this offering is well-timed.  Attend and see if you don’t learn a tidbit or two to coax a little more sap from each taphole this upcoming season.

U-Kentucky/Ohio State Partnership Event

by at

Mixing Big 10 and SEC schools generally results in a brouhaha – not this time.  The University of Kentucky and Ohio State’s Maple team partnered to host a well-attended workshop last Monday evening just across the Ohio River in Boone County, Kentucky.  Strategically located to attract new and existing producers from southern Ohio and across Kentucky, 70 folks showed out for the event.  Beginning outdoors at the Boone County Nature Center, speakers covered topics ranging from maple identification to sustainable tapping practices and showcased demonstrations of different sap collection methods (buckets, bags, tubing) and a steaming boil on the local evaporator.


(Image Courtesy of University of Kentucky)

Along the way, attendees participated in a discussion of different grades and tastes of maple syrup profiled by a couple taste tests.  With a side-by-side comparison, many people were surprised just how different the same basic product – pure maple syrup – can taste.  That taste bud tease led us back to the Boone County Extension Center for a catered City BBQ meal and more presentations on value-added products, a couple short videos on sugarhouse design, and an excellent round of Q&A and conversations that lingered well after the event officially ended at 7 PM.

Many thanks to all who attended, and we look forward to continuing this partnership to expand the good news of maple across the southern tier!  To join up with your local community of maple producers, everyone should strongly consider joining their state association.  The Ohio Maple Producers Association annual event is Friday and Saturday, November 3-4th with Detailed Agenda here and a link to Register here.  The Kentucky Maple Syrup Association is also hosting their Maple School on Saturday, November 4th at the Berea Forestry Outreach Center and there is a button to join their ranks at the bottom of their webpage.

WV Maple Event Opportunity

by at

Southern Ohioans have a great opportunity to slide across the Ohio River to join a wonderful maple event scheduled for October 14th in Wayne, West Virginia.  Just across the water from Lawrence County, OH, our partners at Future Generations University and West Virginia University are putting on a workshop titled “Forest Management for Sap Production: Why You Should ‘Think Maple’ .”

Lunch is provided and the workshop goes from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM and features sugarhouse and sugarbush tours at Tom’s Creek Maple.

Specific talk sessions are as follows:

  • Managing for sap production / Managing for timber production / or both!!
  • Sap collection systems
  • Managing a woodlot for sap production (hands-on and forestry tech talk heavy)
  • Integrating other forest farming activities into your sugaring operation
  • Forest health threats to maple
  • Technical resources through the OH/WV Maple Toolbox

Slots can be reserved by emailing syrup@future.edu.  Don’t miss out on a great learning opportunity to learn from syrupmakers in the far southern tier of what Ohio producers can expect to encounter in maple sugaring.

PA Maple Boot Camp Recap

by at

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!

Pennsylvania Maple Boot Camp: REGISTER Now

by at

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!