Look Bill! Right there close to your own neck of the woods, maple farmers are starting to be concerned about global warming, because their yields are being reduced. Gee, I really like maple syrup. That is really sad!
business.mainetoday.com
Climate change has syrup makers fretting
By MECHELE COOPER
Staff Writer
For five generations Kevin Bacon's family tapped trees in their maple grove, boiled sap and bottled syrup.
The former fire chief said business has been good up until the last two years when a change in weather lowered his syrup production.
The potential effects of global warming on sap production in the northeast is a growing concern for Maine maple syrup producers.
The New England Regional Assessment Group in a 2001 study predicted that if current climate projections hold true, New England forests will be dominated by oak and hickory trees -- not maples -- by the end of the century.
Pancakes smothered in maple syrup could become a thing of the past.
"It has everything to do with the weather," said Bacon of Bacon Farm Maple Products in Sidney. "It warmed up late this year and then stayed warm for an extended period of time. To make syrup, we need freezing nights and above freezing days. Maybe next year we'll have more syrup than we'll know what to do with, but this year's and last year's production have been low."
The transformation of New England forests will come by a gradual change in the competitive balance of one species over another, says Timothy Perkins, director of the University of Vermont Proctor Maple Research Center.
He said global warming -- gradual warming of the Earth's atmosphere -- is a threat to the maple syrup industry. Acid rain is also a threat.
Perkins said it would take hundred years for the trees to be destroyed. But maple syrup producers are already seeing a change in the timing and duration of sap production because of a rise in temperature and change in weather patterns.
"The tendency over the last few decades to be considerably earlier than it used to be is evidence that suggests shorter duration than it used to be," Perkins said. "There's a large number of factors that influence this and global change is one of those."
Kathryn Hopkins at the Somerset County Extension Office said agriculture statistics in New England verify global warming is having an effect on the starting time of tapping trees and making Maple syrup.
Over the past 10 years she said the season has been starting a few days earlier and not lasting as long as it did in the past. She said the question will be if it lasts long enough for people to make the amount of syrup they did in the past.
"Maple sap flows in the spring because of the difference in temperatures between day and night. It must be around 20 degrees at night and around 45 degrees in the day for sap to flow," Hopkins said. "That is why they have maple trees in Missouri but they can't make syrup. We have the right weather here, but if global warming becomes a significant threat, then the syrup industry would also be threatened and would move much farther north into Canada."
She said the Proctor Maple Research Center last year started to spearhead research in this area. The center also will be researching acid rain on forest ecosystems.
Forest decline was a major concern throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, she said. While the Clean Air Act of 1990 addressed some aspects of pollution, acid rain continues to fall on Maine.
Perkins said a condition called nitrogen saturation, which occurs mostly in high elevations, is another threat to maple trees.
A component of acid rain is nitrogen. He said nitrogen is found in fertilizer, but too much can be harmful.
"What we're doing is over-fertilizing the forest," Perkins said. "A little bit of nitrogen is a good thing for plants, they like it, but they don't know when to shut off taking it up and eventually it gets to a point where it harms them. It's projected to happen within the next 40 to 100 years, depending on elevation and nitrogen load."
Eric Ellis of Maine Maple Products, Inc. in Madison, said he is more concerned with pests, particularly the Asian long-horned beetle -- an insect destroying a wide variety of hardwood trees in North America.
Although the Asian long-horned hasn't appeared in Maine yet, syrup makers are on the lookout for it, he said.
"The insects are a growing concern, although there are no serious cases in our immediate area at this point, they're getting closer and closer to home," Ellis said.
The beetle was imported from Asia accidentally in wooden crating and packing materials on ships and unloaded in warehouses and dockside. Trees with long-horned beetle infestations are weakened at first, then die. Damage from this insect will kill a tree within a few years, he said.
The beetle has been detected in many ports around the country with localized infestations discovered in New York and Illinois. Infestation has been restricted around Long Island and New York City, the suburbs of Chicago and urban trees in Toronto.
Dave Struble, Maine Forest Service entomologist, said the goal is to eradicate the long-horned beetle by chipping and burning infested trees.
Struble said there are 157 million maple trees in Maine, and to rid the forest of these pests would be a monstrous job.
"They can fly, but don't tend to fly too far," Struble said. "But it's very conceivable that someone could inadvertently lug up to their camp a bunch of these pests in firewood from their back yard. That's the risk."
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