Weather isn’t sweet for syrup producers

Sap is crawling

By RON SELAK JR. Tribune Chronicle
SOUTHINGTON — There’s nothing savory about this year’s maple syrup crop, northeast Ohio producers of the sweet stuff are saying.

‘‘The weather hasn’t been very cooperative for us,’’ said Richard Case, who runs a Southington sugar shack with his father-in-law Ray Davis.

Production is down. It’s just been too cold — there’s hasn’t been a thaw in the freeze-and-thaw cycle, makers say.

‘‘If I had to judge it to this point, it’s very much down. I’m just hoping it’s not going too be late,’’ said Karl Evans, an Orwell producer. ‘‘We’ve had thaws, but they’ve been too short, too quick, not enough to overcome the depth of frost in the ground.’’

What producers need are warm days and cool nights, says Case, which allows Mother Nature to go to work making sap flow from the trees.

‘‘That’s what pushes the sap outside the trees,’’ said Case, who has about 2,000 taps. ‘‘The pressure inside the tree is greater than the pressure outside.’’

Case said he’s been able to produce about 30 of the near 200 gallons he regularly makes. Evans, about 160 gallons of the 750 he usually makes each season.

Terese L. Volkmann of the Geauga County Tourism Council said producers were hoping to have a good year after last year’s crop was down about 20 percent. A rise in demand coupled with low production has increased prices dramatically in Ohio, numbers from the Department of Agriculture show.

In the last five years, the price has jumped $1.70 per gallon from $32.30 in 2002. It spiked at $36 a gallon in 2005.

Ohio traditionally ranks fourth or fifth in the nation among syrup-producing states, most of which are in the Great Lakes region.

‘‘Hopefully, in the next couple weeks, things will stay at the right weather cycle,’’ Volkmann said. ‘‘There should be above freezing days and below freezing nights so, to get that sap flowing and they can start collecting it.’’

‘‘We were really hoping to have a good season to build supply up and bring prices down,’’ she said.

On Sunday, in Davis’ shack, the evaporator — a device similar to a steam kettle that is used to boil the water from the sap, concentrating it into syrup — sat filled with gooey sap.

‘‘We’ll maybe get two to three days because it turns cold, then it gets warm and we’ll have a couple three more days,’’ Davis said. ‘‘It’s not steady all the time. We’re lucky to get three days in a row.’’

Producers have their eyes on the weather forecast and are hoping the sap will be flowing nicely by Wednesday.

What they don’t need is a warm spell.

‘‘No 60s or 70s, that will end the season,’’ Evans said.

‘‘It’s still early enought that we could have a real good season, just very late,’’ Evans said, with about 10 days left to harvest sap.



rselak@tribune-chronicle.com