workshop

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!!

Lake Erie Maple Expo RECAP

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Guest post by Carri Jagger, a MUCH appreciated piece of the Ohio State Maple puzzle!

On November 10th and 11th the Pennsylvania Maple Producers Association and the Northwestern FFA hosted the 2023 Lake Erie Maple Expo in Albion PA.  The Expo kicked off on Friday morning with a variety of sessions from beginning maple production, confections, and value-added products to tubing installation and vacuum.

I had the opportunity to attend the Advanced Tubing and Installation workshop on Friday that was taught by Steve Childs, retired maple specialist from Cornell University.  Steve taught us how to use the basal area angle gauge to estimate the potential number of taps per acre.

Steve also taught about evaluating your current maple tubing system to make sure that it is operating as efficiently as possible.  He shared the Cornell Maple Tubing and Vacuum System Notebook with the class.  You can view and print the notebook from the Cornell Maple Program Notebook Series Website.

On Saturday the conference resumed at the Albion High School where there were 4 concurrent sessions that covered 30 different topics.  I took the opportunity to attend the maple value-added track where I learned about using a glucose meter to check the invert sugar levels in maple syrup.  Determining invert sugar levels are important if you are planning on using your maple syrup for maple candy, sugar, cream and other confections.  If you would like to learn more about making maple confections check out the Cornell Maple Confections Notebook offered at the website above.

I also attended sessions about the distillation of maple and making beverages with maple.  Michigan State and Cornell are both doing extensive research about using late season maple and off flavor maple to distill into a marketable product.  Cornell has created recipes for several maple beverages and those can be found at the Cornell new product development site.

In addition to the conference there was also a trade show to visit with vendors about new and existing maple syrup equipment.  The conference was a great learning opportunity for both new and seasoned maple syrup producers.  The Lake Erie Maple Expo is always the second weekend in November and I encourage you to attend.

 

U-Kentucky/Ohio State Partnership Event

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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

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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

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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!

Upcoming Maple Events

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Working from long-range calendar planning to close-range events, we are excited about the upcoming slew of maple events.  There is literally something for everybody!

Join us for the 2023 Ohio Maple Days in Ashland, Ohio, December 8th and 9th for 2 days of instructional workshops, food and fellowship, and a Saturday full of technical talks for both advanced sugarmakers and beginners.  We kick things off at 1 PM on Friday with a value-added workshop that will teach participants how to make maple sugar, maple cream, maple candy, maple cotton candy, and even some maple-infused breakfast sausage links.  The Ohio Maple Producers Association is hosting a maple contest with banquet blowout Friday night with the full conference agenda on Saturday.  During Saturday afternoon, we are excited to offer a beginner’s track to explore the basics of maple and an advanced track that will focus on sugarhouse design, marking your woods for a crop tree release timber harvest, and more.  And by popular demand, we are bringing back hydrometer testing – so please mark your calendars for December 8th and 9th.  We will post the registration details as soon as they go live.

Lake Erie Maple Expo is slated for November 10-11 in Albion, PA.  This popular event has an excellent list of sessions and speakers on tap for participants.  I for one have never been in attendance but will be changing that this year.  I hope to see a few familiar faces there!

The week prior to LEME on November 3rd and 4th, the Ohio Maple Producers will be hosting their annual meeting – stay tuned or check their website for details!

Sturbridge, Massachusetts, will be the hosting location for this year’s North American Maple Conference from October 25-28.  This is the BIG show with an absolutely packed slate of tours, meetings, technical workshops, and great meals.  You can find registration details here.  If that’s not enough for you, the International Maple Grading School will be offered October 29th and 30th just down the road in Grafton, MA.

A bit more local, we are excited to be offering a tandem webinar/workshop in collaboration with the University of Kentucky.  The webinar – evening of September 11th –  will be a basic introduction to all things maple in order to whet new producers’ appetites and lure them out to the in-person event in Boone County, KY, on Monday, October 16th.

Sandwiched in between those 2 events, please consider joining us down in southwestern Ohio Saturday, September 16th for a workshop in partnership with the Cincinnati Zoo.  Registration details are live on the Ohio Woodland Stewards Program website.  In conjunction with the workshop, participants will have a chance to shop and browse at the Zoo’s Native Plant Nursery there on site at Bowyer Farm.

And last but not least, Pennsylvania is hosting Maple Boot Camp on September 6th-8 prefaced by a Maple Grading Workshop the morning of that Wednesday.  Boot Camp is the brain child of the 3-state OH/PA/WV, and it is the Keystone State’s turn to host.  We are excited about this in-depth, deep dive into maple sugaring and hope to repeat the success of last year’s Boot Camp in Ohio.

I’ll be sprinkling reminders here and there as different registration deadlines loom, but I hope to cross paths with you at least once, if not multiple times, throughout the fall maple programming season.  Lots of options to choose from!!

Pennsylvania Maple Boot Camp: REGISTER Now

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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!

Upcoming Maple Workshop – June 15th!

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Come join us on June 15th at Holden Arboretum’s Working Woods for the maple workshop – “Woodland Owners & Maple Production: Is It an Income Opportunity for You?”

Offered through Ohio State’s Woodland Steward program, we are excited to introduce woodland owners to the ins and outs of maple syrup production.  Is your woods suitable?  How involved do you want to be?  How much are you willing to invest into such an endeavor?  We will start inside and finish outside looking at equipment options and how to set-up a woods for maple production.  The class fee is $40 and includes lunch & materials.  Please consider joining us and REGISTER here.

March Maple Programming Recap

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Because the weather put us out of the syrup-making business by March 1st this year, we delivered a crowded schedule of March maple programming at a variety of events instead.

Kicking off the month, Kathy Smith and I tag-teamed a talk at the Woodland, Water, and Wildlife (WWW) Conference.  We spoke to a roomful of attendees about the maple toolbox that has emerged from our tri-state USDA ACER grant.  The maple toolbox is designed for foresters and natural resource professionals to bring maple sugaring to landowners as a management option.  From site and tree evaluation to a crash course in regulatory requirements for maple producers, the toolbox is gaining traction as an excellent resource across its intended Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania reach.  The 1-hour presentation at WWW teed up a full-day workshop dedicated to just the maple toolbox for middle of the month.

2 weeks later, I spoke to a group of 30 undergraduate students from the Buckeye Learning Community at OSU-Mansfield.  While students filled up their plates with pancakes covered in Ohio State maple syrup, we discussed the concepts of stewardship and sustainability in balancing the need for natural resources while protecting our environment.  Maple is absolutely a perfect candidate topic to explore these themes.  Once bellies were full, we went outside to get students some experience identifying maple trees in the woods.  With a handful of maples identified just outside the building, everyone got some tapping practice while we collected some sap to check Brix with our digital refractometers.  The sap sugar content exercise worked beautifully as a suppressed maple struggling to get out of the midstory posted a 1.4 Brix and was blown out of the water by the most dominant sugar maple in the stand – the maple monarch put up a stellar 3.4% sugar content.  It was eye-opening for many students to see the connection between a healthy forest and production potential as measured by Brix.

March 15th was a full day in-service workshop for 20 professionals.  The deep dive into the maple toolbox coupled an indoor morning session with an outdoor afternoon session.  Consulting foresters, extension educators, agents from local Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and more participated.  A big thanks to Les Ober and Carri Jagger for helping us teach that workshop.  While we talked about the in’s and out’s of how to make maple syrup, the workshop focused mostly on evaluating sites for feasibility and production potential and focusing on tree/forest health through the lens of sugarbush management.

Finally, a tandem of Saturday presentations at the Ohio River Valley Woodland & Wildlife Workshop focused on introducing landowners to sugarbush planning and maple economics.  I shared a presentation entitled “Maybe Maple? A Beginner’s Guide to Planning a Sugarbush” that was followed by a remote presentation from Dr. Sayeed Mehmood dedicated to the dollars and cents side of maple operations.  It is exciting to the southern tier excitement of maple spread, and engaging with an audience that welcomed attendees from Kentucky and Indiana to Loveland, Ohio, was a great opportunity to spread the good word of maple.

 

More Upcoming Maple Events

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We’re tapped and the production system is flushed and tight with great vacuum.  Many thanks to our students and technicians for getting the 2023 sap season underway!

Join the OSU Extension team on March 1st for the annual Woodland, Water, and Wildlife Conference.  Kathy Smith and Gabe Karns will be presenting a seminar early in the agenda titled “Woodland Owners, Maple Syrup, and the New Maple Toolbox.”  Book your whole day with us though as many other interesting topics will be covered including buckeye tree conservation, aquatic plants and wetlands, Ohio snakes, spotted lanternfly updates, urban coyotes, and more.

If you are a consulting forester, work with a natural resource agency, or are otherwise employed within the environmental and natural resource career field, please join us on March 15th for an in-service workshop customized for you!  Learn how to assess a woodlands potential, what equipment will be needed, what options are available to a landowner interested in maple sugaring, and what else is needed to establish an operation as an income opportunity.