Maple Season 2021 Update

Upon writing this on March 17, my maple camp in Corriganville, Maryland was

nearing the end of the maple tapping season! Leo of S and S Maple Camp said that up on the mountain, the trees were still producing sap and they were still collecting and boiling. They had started collecting sap in February, down on his farm and as the weather warmed during the day, the trees on the mountain started to produce sap. It takes these slightly warm days and cool nights to allow the sap to move. As the weather warms even further, the capillaries of the tree that the sap is moving through, will begin to seal themselves and the tapping season will be over. When he started in February, he said he had two good weeks of sap flow and then the weather got very warm and the tapping was over for two weeks. For most maple producers, that would’ve been the end of their season. But with climate change, this maple camp has been trying to adjust and wait to see if there would be another spurt of cold weather. And there was! So he was able to re-tap and has been collecting sap for another two weeks. Here are some pictures of the trees he taps on the farm, the collection of the sugar water (sap) and the boiling after the sugar water has gone through the reverse osmosis machine to pull out the majority of the water.