Late winter and early spring is harvest season for our Pure Vermont Maple Syrup. Mother Nature said “Don’t blink” this year – our harvest is over and done for 2021. This was one of the hardest years we had for tapping – we had over 4 feet of snow in the woods and were on snow shoes the whole time. Then we waited. Then we waited a little more – temps still not warm enough. Yeah! Temps rose above freezing and the sap began to flow through the trees. Then it got hot – which was bad. Too many days in a row of hot temps (above 60) and no freezing at night. This caused the sugars in the sap to change – and ended our harvest.
No worries – we have plenty for you! We just won’t have as much syrup to wholesale this year. The other issue this year was the color of the syrup – we didn’t make any Delicate this year. We have plenty of Amber Rich and Amber Robust Again this comes back to the sugar content in the sap. This year it was low – meaning it took more sap to make a gallon of syrup and caused the color to be darker. One theory is that we had drought type conditions last year which caused the trees to react the way they did. Across the state crops were low and color was dark. The flavor is still super yummy.
A little of the science – we drill into tree far enough to reach the sapwood which is where xylem occurs. Xylem is the vascular tissue in the tree that conducts water and nutrients (dissolved minerals) from the roots to the stems and leaves.
Inner tree rings
