season updates

The 2021 Ohio Maple Syrup Production Report

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Looking back on Ohio’s maple syrup season, production was lower than last year, but it could have been a lot worse. The season was short for most Ohio producers lasting 30 days or less. Ohio’s crop came in around 70 to 80 percent of normal overall. Because of the warm weather, syrup generally graded out in the Amber to Dark Robust range. However, there was still a fair amount of Golden made in the northern part of the state. If you look at the markets and what customers seem to prefer, this is right in line with the increasing demand for the darker grades of syrup. The earliest start dates were in the last week of January, but early starters were not rewarded this year. A massive cold air invasion that lasted until the 20th of February delayed tapping across the state. Most producers reported their first boil in the last couple days of February or first couple days of March. For nearly everyone, the season ended by March 25th. It is not often that you see seasons this shortened without a total collapse in production. Over the last several years, there seems to be a drop in the percentage of maple sap sugar as well. Percentages of sap sugar were on the lower end again this year averaging around 1.7 percent sugar.

To have a season end because of a combination of too cold, too hot, and too dry conditions is very unusual, but that is exactly what happened in Ohio. Extreme weather once again was the dominant factor in 2021. The end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 saw a strong La Nina weather pattern take control of the region’s weather. This resulted in one of the warmest Decembers and Januarys on record. Cold and snow dominated the month of February setting up a chance for a good season even though the start was delayed.   When you consider what happened in February, everyone knew this season would be different from the last several. A massive Arctic air mass (Polar Vortex) drove deep into the heartland of America and dominated February, but the prolonged cold did set up some outstanding early sap runs when things finally warmed. Unfortunately, the ideal sugar making weather would be short lived.

Producers soon realized that the dominant warm weather experienced in December and January was not gone. Hello again La Nina! The return of warm weather did kick off a record sap flow that lasted about a week, but Mother Nature teased local maple producers with a very fickle freeze/thaw cycle that showed no signs of sustaining a sap run through the end of March. The final blow came on March 20th. This would be the last freeze followed by 4 days of 70-degree weather.  Most of the producers lamented the shortness of the season, but if we are honest with ourselves, the unique combination and variety of weather conditions could have dealt a worse blow to production.

We had an excellent season in 2020 and the demand for syrup was outstanding despite the pandemic. Now hopefully, the 2021 season was good enough to take care of the demand until the 2022 season arrives in 8 or 9 more months.

Author: Les Ober, Geauga County OSU Extension

Record Crop of Maple Syrup Produced in the United States and Canada

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Based on the word from Ohio producers attending annual maple manufacturers’ open houses, it was a big year in New England for syrup production. Many of the big northern Vermont and New Hampshire producers were not present, they were still boiling syrup. When the steam cleared and the last syrup was drawn off, Vermont produced a record 1.9 million gallons of syrup in a single season. Let that sink in, it was only 10 years ago that we struggled to produce 2 million gallons collectively in all of the United States, and in 2016, the state of Vermont produced almost 2 million gallons on their own! Vermont previous record was 1.48 million gallons set in 2013. The United States produced 4.2 million gallons in total, the highest amount in modern record keeping. New York (707,000), Maine (675,000), Wisconsin (235,000), and New Hampshire (169,000) rounded out the top 5 states.

With all the syrup produced in the United States, you can only imagine what they did “north of the border.” Yes it was big, it was really big. The Canadian crop is projected at 13.5 million gallons. This would set a new record for Canadian maple syrup produced and individual provinces are expected to set records as well. You can rest assured that there will not be any shortage of pure maple syrup in the world for some time and one has to wonder what the effect will be on maple syrup prices, especially bulk.

So what about Ohio? Unfortunately, our 2016 did not share in the record crop celebration.

Ohio Maple Producers knew 2016 was going to be a disappointing year for maple syrup production, and the USDA NASS report verified our worst fears. 2016 was a real bummer for the entire state. Total production for Ohio dropped from 115,000 gallons in 2015 to 70,000 gallons in 2016. Yield per tap, generally a good production indicator, averaged 0.275 gallons per tap in 2014 and 2015 but only 0.189 gallons per tap in 2016. Normally Ohio bests most states in production per tap, but this year’s production was on the verge of disaster. The sugar content of sap (often near or below 1%) certainly did not help the overall per tap production of syrup.

Another statistic that was very puzzling was the total number of taps recorded for 2016. This year the number of taps in Ohio dropped from 450,000 to 370,000 taps. In the last 10 years, the number of taps in Vermont and New York almost doubled – Vermont is just shy of 5 million taps and NY is pushing 2.5 million. What is going on in Ohio? Why are we in a statistical state of decline? A better question may be – Is there really a decline? Working with OSU Extension and the Ohio maple industry for the last 18 years, I have witnessed an overall expansion of the industry. It has not been unusual to see the number of 3,000+ tap operations increase every year. I know of several new operations that just eclipsed the 10,000 tap mark. While we will never be in the same category as New York or Vermont, our maple industry is growing. However, when you look at the statistics, we are not recognized as a growth industry – we are an agricultural industry in decline.

The reality is that a large portion of Ohio’s maple syrup production is not being reported. There is an old saying that “if it is worth doing, it is worth doing well.” I believe that Ohio maple producers are doing a good job of producing syrup, but for some reason they are reluctant to let the world know how good of a job they are doing. Because the world rewards those that achieve excellence, it is crucial that Ohio producers improve on their reporting habits and the reward will undoubtedly be increased consumer demand and higher retail sales.

Author: Les Ober, Geauga County OSU Extension

 

Ohio Slips to Eighth in the Nation in 2015 Maple Syrup Production

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We knew the 2014 season got off to a late start and might translate to a below average season, but we hoped that would not happen and in a way it did not. Ohio produced 115,000 gallons of maple syrup in 2015, only a 15,000 gallon dip in production from 2013.  The bigger news is that Ohio slipped from being ranked 6th in production in 2014 and as high as 4th in 2012 to 8th in the nation for maple production in 2015. This was reported in the USDA Nation Agricultural Statistic Service (NASS) June Crop Production Report released June 10, 2015.

The bottom line is that Ohio had an average season, but other maple states are improving their production and advancing faster than Ohio. NASS reported 2015 maple producing states, ranked from top to bottom in gallons produced as follows.

The stand out statistic is tap numbers. According to USDA NASS, Ohio has not significantly increased their tap numbers in three years. We remain stuck between 440,000 and 450,000 taps. New Hampshire, a state that perennially has finished below Ohio in production, added close to 100,000 taps in the last year and is now ranked ahead of Ohio. Our neighbor to the east Pennsylvania continues to take advantage of their growth potential and has steadily increased its production each year.

Maybe you disagree with the results of this annual survey, I know I do. To report that Ohio has not increased tap numbers in 3 years is beyond belief, but it is not the survey’s fault. NASS only reports the survey returns they get back and they only get reports from a small number of producers. If you consider a large producer to be 5000+ taps, then took the number 5000 and divided it into 440,000 taps total, the math says Ohio only has 88 total producers. Even if you took the number 2000 and repeated the simple equation, you can quickly see that there is a large amount of syrup production going unreported in our state. It should be noted that under-reporting is not an Ohio issue only, but perhaps the degree of under-reporting in Ohio is greater than in some other states surveyed by NASS.

Why should we care? In a world that is run on statistics and where more times than not the squeaky wheel gets the grease, Ohio maple producers could quickly come out on the short end of the deal. From time to time, the Ohio Maple Producer’s Association has applied for funds to help spur Ohio’s maple industry. These grant funds are limited and we are pitted against other states with similar needs. A market segment that is in decline or stagnant will not get the consideration that a growing segment will. I have always said the Ohio maple industry is a growth industry and I am sticking to that, but it is not being reflected in the NASS report. There are many people that judge a book by its cover, and the cover according to NASS is that maple syrup production is slipping in Ohio. Insiders may strongly suspect different but that does not count. Unfortunately the NASS report is the only tool we have to evaluate our progress, everything else is just speculation.

In a move to highlight the survey’s importance to Ohio maple producers, OSU Extension extended an invite to a representative from Ohio’s NASS for our winter meetings. We hoped that attending producers would see the value of the survey and participate. I have said this before and I’ll say it again – too much syrup in Ohio is going unreported and that fact may eventually hurt our industry.

Overall, Ohio production was average at best for 2015. I blame it on a late start and a shortened number of production days. On average, we started production March 7th and closed April 3rd meaning Ohio producers were only in production 27 days this year. However, that was one day longer than Vermont, which produced 1,390,000 gallons. A final metric to consider is yield per tap, an area in which Ohio has traditionally excelled. Ohio continued to slide closer to a quart of syrup per tap producing only .26 gallons per tap in 2015. To compare, we produced .352 gallons of syrup per tap in 2013 (second highest in the nation). Overall Ohio’s 2015 season was below average. Let’s hope 2016 is better.

If you want to read the whole report, go to the USDA NASS website and enter Crop Production June 2015 into search. Click the top search result and scroll down to the 2016 PDF report (which summarizes 2015 production). Maple reporting begins on page 79.

Author: Les Ober, Geauga County OSU Extension