maple research

Freeman’s Maple Research Podcast

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Just a quick reminder that the Ohio Maple Days registration is live – we hope to see you in December!

A couple months ago, I had the opportunity to sit down virtually with Aaron Wightman from Cornell and talk about the 3 year’s worth of data we collected to investigate Freeman’s maple production potential in comparison to sugar maples.  The research was conducted at OSU-Mansfield in the University research sugarbush, and Aaron did a great job leading the Sweet Talk Maple Podcast and keeping the conversation on track.  Please enjoy!  The episode can be downloaded and heard anywhere you get your podcasts.

UVM Proctor Red Maple Research

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There is plenty to learn from this video focused on Proctor’s red maple research.  How much sap is produced?  How sweet is the sap?  What sort of quality can be achieved with the syrup?  This research has a similar set of questions to the USDA ACER grant we are working on here in Ohio comparing sugar maples to the red x silver hybrids on The Ohio State University-Mansfield campus.

Time Lapse ACER Research

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Watch this time lapse video of maple research taking place at the Ohio State Sugarbush located on the OSU Mansfield Campus.

Across 13 racks with 5, 6, or 7 canisters each, the OSU maple team emptied sap to monitor individual tree yield and sap sugar content…daily! The 75 research canisters will help us answer questions about how red x silver hybrid trees (Acer freemanii or “rilver” for short) compare to sugar maple production standards. The PVC canisters are a new design engineered by the team, and vacuum consistently achieved levels in the 22-25 pounds range. A drill pump mounted on a standard cordless drill boosted our sampling efficiency, and a digital Misco refractometer handled sugar readings.

While the data won’t be formally analyzed for a bit, we were surprised just how variable individual trees performed based on sap volume as well as sap sweetness. A couple trees achieved sugar content readings over 3 even at the end of the season. While other trees struggled to break 1.2 or 1.3% all season. For yield, 2-3 gallons a day was average for some trees. Normal for others amounted to just 1 or 2 quarts. The team is pulling down the research equipment now for off-season storage.

Stay tuned for updates.

Author: Gabe Karns, OSU Mansfield & SENR

From the Woods: Another ACER Project Update

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Personal point of pride to share this photo of my 9 year old daughter Raelyn holding her first ever recorded datasheet.  She persevered for 4 hours of research last Sunday afternoon and evening to help me empty 75 sap chambers during a small sap run.  It has been a true team effort to pull off the ACER research project!  It seems uncertain right now just long the 2021 season will or will not last, but regardless, the 3 years of this project will allow us to answer some interesting and important questions for Ohio maple.

From the Woods: ACER Research Update

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Old Man Winter finally loosened its grip and maple sap is flowing!  For comparison using growing degree days (GDD) on February 28th, we were at 16 GDDs and 22 GDDs in 2019 and 2020 at our sugarbush on the Ohio State Mansfield campus.  2021 GDDs will likely tick up for the very first time on this – the final day of February; however, the extended forecast looks iffy whether we will get many of the needed recharge cycles with nighttime temperatures in the high 20s or lower.  Whatever the season may bring, our research is progressing nicely and the first data of the 3-year project is being collected.

Students have worked hard to get PVC research canisters built to collect sap off individual maple trees.  COVID-19 reared its ugly head by disrupting the shipping supply chain and a University-wide switch to a new fiscal operating system caused further delays for all the components to arrive.  Though we had working prototypes built by early January, we used up every bit of time that Old Man Winter’s stranglehold gave us to finish the entire research system.  What a relief when the final pallet arrived, the last canister was assembled, and pressure testing confirmed our DIY canisters were a success!

With warmer temperatures on the forecast and piles of snow melting away, last week was an all-out scramble to get our upgraded vacuum pump cranking, production taps running (a smidge over 1,100 for the 2021 season), single tree canisters situated in their collection racks, research trees hooked into the research system, and an additional fleet of buckets/lids installed across campus in the crop tree release demonstration area.

Student help has been and will continue to be integral to our success.  And Anthony Tambini – a recent graduate from the School of Environment and Natural Resources – has been full-time on the project since January 1.  Without the students and his help, none of this would be possible.

Moving forward, daily sap measurements (volume and sugar content) will be taken from each individual research tree’s canister through the end of the season.  Buckets will be emptied daily in the crop tree management zone as well.  2021’s data will be the first of 3 years to examine potential differences between maple species and between crop tree treatment groups (much more on that in a later post!).

We all wonder what March and April will bring to the maple woods in the Buckeye State, but this year’s cold grip of winter and late start highlights one important principle of research.  Because of variation, multiple years of data are necessary to make reasonable research conclusions – so we are in it for the long haul!  Happy sugaring!!

Author: Gabriel Karns

Ohio State Receives 2nd ACER Research Award in 2 Years!!

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We are excited to announce our new research project “Freeman’s Maple (red x silver) Potential for Syrup Production and Resilience in Ohio’s Forests.”  The announcement came in the 2020 round of USDA ACER funded proposals.  Click over to the Mansfield Maple tab to learn a bit more about the grant and what you can expect from the project over the next 3-4 years.

Suffice it to say, the grant will be keeping us busy for the foreseeable future, and we are excited to advance Ohio’s role in better understanding, utilizing, and protecting our maple resource.  Stay tuned for updates.

This is the second ACER award in as many years – you can read more about the Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania cooperative project under the ‘Research’ tab.  (And a friendly reminder related to last year’s ACER grant – FILL OUT THOSE PRODUCERS SURVEYS!!)

Author: Gabe Karns

Complete & Return Your Maple Producer Survey

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URGENT: Please do us the favor of returning your producer survey in our ACER research project!

As you might know already, we (Ohio State University) were awarded an ACER grant in 2019 in collaboration with Future Generations University in West Virginia and Penn State University.  You can peek under the Research tab on the Ohio State Maple site or read this press release through the School of Environment and Natural Resources webpage for more general information about the award.

A main focus of the award was to send a survey to Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania producers to update our knowledge of production practices, where producers are marketing and moving maple syrup and other value-added maple products, and get a grasp on maple production numbers across the tri-state region.  The latter piece of information is extra important now that Ohio has been removed from the list of states in USDA’s NASS maple survey.

Survey science is a tricky business and while we do not need every single producer to respond, each response helps.  Each producer increases sample size and incrementally reduces our uncertainty about the different elements we are trying to explore.  Due to the fact that only Pennsylvania is still on the list of NASS-surveyed maple states (West Virginia and Ohio having been dropped), getting a firm grasp on production data will be more important than ever.  Our tri-state team sent nearly 2,000 surveys to producers across the 3 states and is currently rolling out a round of “take your survey” reminders.  All respondents’ returned surveys are de-identified and we don’t share data with anyone outside the primary ACER award team, and you can be assured that your confidentiality is being prioritized!

So we will leave it at that.  Please, if you received a producers survey from Ohio State’s ACER team, be an active member of the maple community and make your anonymous contribution on behalf of the broader maple community.  We value your input and look forward to sharing results when the surveys are in and the analysis starts!

Author: Gabe Karns