Sugaring in Ohio
A Winter Affair
The maple syrup making process is one of long hours and tough labors. In Ohio, maple tree sap is collected in the winter and early spring when the temperatures during the day are warm (above freezing), but fall below freezing overnight.
The southwestern tip of Ohio has one of the earliest and shortest sugaring seasons of the year. We tap our trees around the first of January and collect sap through late February. Our season sometimes ends before our colleagues in the northeast begin!
River Valley Micro Climate
Any type of maple tree will produce sap flow under the right conditions. Sugar maples are certainly the most reliable producers, but are not as common in our area as they are in the northeast.
Sugar maples like cold, dry conditions, and high ground. Our river valley geography is low country with very wet ground, and our temperatures have a much warmer pattern year-round compared to even the middle of the state. Large stands of naturally occurring sugar maples are uncommon in the southern Ohio woodlands.
Sugarmaking on the Bayou
Our woods tend to be filled with oak, hackberry, ash, locust, walnut, sycamore, and hickory. Silver and red maples are the most prevalent in our area where there are maple trees. These are often called "swamp maples" because of their natural love for wet ground. They grow significantly quicker than sugar maples and have softer wood - also called "soft maples".
A sugar maple can take 40 years to reach tapping size; a soft maple is ready in half that time (sometimes less!).
Every Maple Counts
A large percentage of our syrup is made from silver and red maples, though we also tap sugar maples, some black maples, and even a Norway maple or two. Box elders can also be tapped, but they tend to produce a very different flavor, so our farm does not include them in our tapping circuit.
Similar to wine, we know that growing conditions, weather, soil type, access to sunlight, and competition for resources all affect the performance of a tree - and even the taste to some degree. Soft maples do exceedingly well in our climate and produce better than they might in other areas of the country.
Regional Differences
In northern climates, soft maples are often not tapped because of poor performance - lower sap flow and lower concentration of sugar. But in the southern river valleys, soft maples can produce over ten gallons of sap in one day at a high sugar%.
Our syrup has a buttery, almost nutty flavor - in part from the maple varieties and soil conditions in our micro-climate, which is extremely favorable to red and silver maples.
As our planet's climate grows hotter, these trees are better suited to producing in warmer winters.
