Fingers crossed for upcoming season
Harvest can still be good if weather co-operates
While the weather this winter hasn’t been ideal for many crops, a maple syrup producer says that as long as conditions play out like they should from here on, production shouldn’t be hurt this year.
Chris Hutchinson, of Hutchinson Acres in Lake Paul, said what is needed for good production is cold nights below freezing to “shock” the tree and make sap flow up from the roots, and then warm temperatures above freezing the next day to make the sap flow through the taps.
One of the problems this year was getting the trees tapped in January in preparation.
“We’ve been struggling to get our taps in because of the temperature being above freezing,” Hutchinson said.
“We do not want to tap a tree when it’s thawed because the sap is flowing, and we don’t want to introduce bacteria in the tap hole,” he added. “That’s a bad thing because the tree will close that hole off prematurely.”
With the taps in now, as long as the temperature fluctuates from -5 C or so at night to 6 C or so during the day, the sap will flow and all should be fine.
“We can still have a good year if the weather co-operates,” Hutchinson said.
He said Feb. 16's expected daytime temperature of 6 C to 7 C for the Lake Paul area will mean the sap is running, and the same was expected for the next day with temperatures dropping at night.
“If we get that kind of weather through the spring, we would have a good season,” Hutchinson said.
“So far this year we haven’t had those conditions. Going forward, let’s hope we will.”
Temperatures in January were flat, he said. There were no up or down fluctuations between night and day, and that also meant the trees didn’t harden against the effects of the cold. When the polar vortex came through the province earlier this month, it popped out 40 per cent of taps that were already in the trees because the wood froze and expanded.
There were also some splits and damage to trees because of the cold, but it wasn’t a huge amount, Hutchinson said.