Dozens of people turned out at Lake Maria State Park last weekend for what has become one of the most popular events at the park - the annual maple syrup program.

 

The weather was perfect - not only for the visitors who travelled to the park, but for collecting sap to make maple syrup.

 

Naturalist Cindy Crawford explained how the temperature plays a big part in whether there will be any sap flowing for the demonstration.

 

“In the winter time, the sap is sucked down into the roots of the tree,” she said. “The sap runs through the inner bark of the tree, the cambium. In warmer temperatures the sap runs up  during the day and goes back down to the roots at night when temperatures are below freezing.”

 

The sap carries nutrients that help new growth each spring and summer. In the winter, the sap stays below ground and the tree is dormant. But once temperatures get above freezing, usually in March and April, the sap starts flowing again.

 

“March tends to be the month that we do our maple syruping, but we can start as early as February,” said Crawford. “What we look for are days in the 40s and nights in the 20s. If you think about the weather we’ve had lately, it’s either been too cold or too warm.”

 

Temperatures weren’t a problem last weekend as Park Manager Mark Crawford led groups of visitors into the woods to demonstrate how to tap a maple tree. He said the first thing to do was locate a maple tree, which he usually marks in the fall when the leaves still make the trees identifiable. 

 

Generally, the trees in the fall that have the brightest colors tend to be the best sap producers. Color is somewhat determined by the sugar content in the sap.

 

Crawford explained that the large feeder roots tend to have the most sap, so tapping the tree above the roots is a good way to get good sap flowing.

 

The rule of thumb, he said, is one tap for a tree with a diameter of 10 to 12 inches. And never put a tap in the same spot on a tree, because it produces scar tissue once the tap is removed.

 

On a good day, a tree can fill a two-gallon bucket with sap. Then the sap is collected and put in a garbage can sized container.

 

Once enough sap is collected, the boiling process begins. Cindy said she uses the outdoor wood-burning stove with a large vat on top to start the process.

 

It is a long process, with sap being added throughout the day as water boils off. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup.

 

“So you can see why we want to start with a fairly large quantity of sap,” she told the group.

 

Once the sap reaches 219 degrees, the sap has turned into maple syrup. But Cindy says she doesn’t usually complete the boiling process outdoors.

 

“This time of year you’re getting leaves and bits of bark. Later in the season you’ll get moths and flies,” she said. “I like to pull it off  the stove when it’s very close and finish it at home where I can watch the temperature better, screen it out and put it in canning jars.”

 

Cindy said Native Americans taught early settlers about making maple syrup, although they usually boiled it all the way down to make sugar because they had no way to transport syrup. 

 

Today, even after hundreds of years, people are still collecting sap and making syrup the same way the settlers did.

 

“It’s still a pretty labor-intensive process,” she said.