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Maple syrup producers coming off a tough season in Maine can be forgiven for the temptation to tap their trees during recent springlike weather.
“It feels like we should be sugaring, but the calendar tells us we shouldn’t be,” said Lyle Merrifield, owner of Merrifield Farms in Gorham. “Hopefully, it doesn’t confuse the trees too much.”
Normally, warmer days and cold nights get the sap running in late February or early March. Usually, the season lasts until the trees bud in April.
Timing is everything.
If the syrup producers tap the trees too late they can miss the best sap. If they tap too early, the holes will dry up or close before most of the sap flows. Holes last about a month and tapping more than once can harm the trees.
“You can only make maple syrup when the sap begins to flow, but the game’s over when the trees begin to bud,” said Rod McCormick, public information officer for the Maine Department of Agriculture. “It’s real hard to read the signs this spring.”
Maine is the nation’s second-largest maple syrup producer. But Maine’s production dropped 9 percent to 265,000 gallons last year.
Some producers, mostly in Vermont and New York, have reportedly tapped their trees to catch the unusually early sap flow.
But several farmers in southern Maine said Monday that they are betting Mother Nature still has some winter left. Typical subfreezing February temperatures could put the maple trees back on schedule, they said.
Debbie Morin said she and her husband, Doug, have waited to set their 2,500 taps. They run Morin’s Maple Syrup in Limerick and, after 35 years in the business, have a sense of when the time is right, she said.
“There’s a smell when it’s sap. Even the other day, when it was warm, we were outside and I said, ‘It doesn’t smell right.”‘
McCormick said a lot will depend on the weather this week. Colder weather would be the best thing for maple syrup producers.
“If we get additional warm weather, you could begin to see premature budding,” he said. “Then the game’s over.”
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