This story is Mississippi River Basin Agriculture and Water Deskan independent reporting network based in . University of Missouri In cooperation with Report for Americais generously funded by the Walton Family Foundation.
The art of making maple syrup has been passed down through generations in Dan Potter's family history.
His great-grandfather purchased the family farm in rural Iowa in the late 1880s and cleared the land for strawberry, clay, and whiskey production. Eventually, he moved on to making maple syrup to add to his whisky. This began his 140-year tradition, which lasted through the Civil War, the Great Depression, and both World Wars.
Mr. Potter founded his own maple syrup company in 2009 with his wife and three daughters. Great River Maple Inc., located in Ghanaville, Iowa, is currently one of the most prolific syrup producers in the state.
This year's record-warm winter has led to faster sap runoff, posing challenges for the family-owned business. They cut down the first tree on his January 22nd. He is over three weeks faster than ever before.
„When you consider that the average season length is about six-and-a-half weeks, we're talking incredibly fast,“ Potter said.
This year's maple sap season started early for many growers in the upper Midwest states, where the season was short.Some believe they are the changes of the year record warm winter.thanks to El Nino phenomenonranked in the top 10 warmest seasons.
But Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts say anthropogenic climate change is also having varying and unpredictable impacts on maple harvests. Farmers and indigenous communities whose ancestors have harvested trees since time immemorial are changing their practices and planning for a precarious future.
„Every year it seems like the season is getting a little earlier,“ said Teresa Barone, executive director of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association. „But nothing, nothing, nothing like this year. If you talk to a lot of older producers, they've never seen anything like this, either. Here in Wisconsin, this year is different, strange. It’s been a year.”
climate impact
Justin Cain, operations manager at Maple Valley Cooperative in Cashton, Wis., said this year stands out even as the season moves earlier and earlier. The association's membership includes more than 40 farmers from Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and Vermont.
![A man with a white beard and a felt hat enters the humid room.](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Boil_maple.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
![A man with a white beard and a felt hat enters the humid room.](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Boil_maple.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
Jeff Stelfox/The Gazette
“Most of my farmers were scrambling to get all the taps in and vacuums installed,” he said. “Usually I don’t even think about it until the end of February.”
As of mid-March, cooperative president and maple farmer Cecil Wright and his two business partners had harvested about 90 percent of their normal crop, or about 100,000 gallons of maple sap. Wright first boiled barrels of syrup in early February, about three weeks earlier than usual.
„The weather patterns we're seeing are typical of more southern maple-growing regions like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana,“ Wright said.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the first maple cutting took place at Indian Creek Nature Center during the second week of February, when temperatures were already above 40 degrees. The sap was flowing. But by March 1st, the water supply had trickled out. The season was already over, a month earlier than 2023.
Last year, the center collected about 2,000 gallons of sap and produced 46 gallons of syrup. This is one of his best years on record. This year, 500 gallons were collected, enough to produce 12 units.
Sap production is dependent on temperature and microclimate, and differences of just a few degrees can make or break a successful harvest. Flow relies on freeze-thaw cycles, which create pressure that forces liquid up and down within the maple trunk. As daylight hours increase and the weather warms quickly, the buds on the trees open and the season ends.
„We're all limited to what nature gives us,“ Kane says. “Trees do their own thing.”
In the United States, New England and the Midwest are the major producers of maple syrup. Wisconsin, the nation's fourth-largest producer, acquired about 400,000 gallons of syrup in 2022, valued at $13.5 million.
Because temperature fluctuations promote sap production, increased fluctuations may actually increase yields in the Upper Midwest.
Wright said that advanced weather forecasting is making it easier to plan ahead. But tapping too quickly presents its own risks. Vacuum devices and tubing that can be used in place of buckets on maple farms can freeze during unexpected cold snaps, and tap holes drilled initially can close over time.
„We have to acknowledge that humans are having an impact on our environment, but we don't fully understand everything that's going on,“ Wright said. .
In Wisconsin, sugar maples grow in the northern and western parts of the state. Experts predict that trees will survive as the climate warms, but their sap will likely contain less sugar. Experts also hope for an earlier harvest date, but that time is constantly changing and becoming increasingly unpredictable.
Additionally, there is a lack of snow cover, the spread of invasive species and the presence of snow for long periods of time. drought period Combined heavy rains can cause stress and damage to maple trees, negatively impacting future harvests.
Indigenous communities are already preparing.
Protect your lifestyle into the future
Maple syrup production began thousands of years ago when indigenous peoples began converting tree sap into syrup and sugar.
![A person wearing a beanie and jacket stands at the back of a cart and offers a hand to a man](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Maple_buckets.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
![A person wearing a beanie and jacket stands at the back of a cart and offers a hand to a man](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Maple_buckets.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
Jeff Stelfox/The Gazette
Ojibwe bands operated in the upper Midwest until the federal government forcibly acquired their land and water through a series of treaties in the mid-1800s. Bands hunt, gather, fishing rights What is now called the Ceded Territory is millions of acres of land spanning northwestern Michigan and its Upper Peninsula, northern Wisconsin, and northeastern Minnesota.
For Wisconsin tribes, cutting down maple trees is a traditional lifestyle practice known in the Ojibwe language as bimaadijiwin. In addition to exercising treaty rights, promoting food sovereignty, and strengthening community bonds, Ojibwe people harvest from nature as an act of stewardship. If they do not, the Creator ceases to provide for their existence.
Climate change threatens these lifestyles and, in turn, their identities.
Some tribes have developed climate adaptation plans to manage natural resources in ways that protect cultural practices and treaty rights, such as maple sap extraction.
Some options include harvesting sugar maple in multiple locations rather than collecting it centrally. Tree-planting efforts could also consider using non-local seedlings and related species such as red maple that are better adapted to future climatic conditions.
plenty of harvest
In Garnabilo, Potter of Great River Maples expected less sap collection this year, but sap was flowing relatively freely in some sugar bushes in northern Wisconsin.
Chippewa youth sugar bushes in the Bad River Band of Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin started about two weeks early this year and the season felt condensed, but the trees produced plenty of fruit. The young men collected 900 gallons of sap in their first two weeks in March, from which they produced about 20 gallons of maple syrup, or Anishinaabe hisjiiwaaga mijigan.
Maria Nevara of Odana, Wisconsin, and her partner JD Lemieux sponsored the program.
The two also had their own sugarbush, which they named Ozawagoon, or „yellow snow.“
„We have a lot of little kids running around, and every time they say, 'I have to go to the bathroom!' and I'm like, 'Here you go,'“ Nevarra said.
At Ozawa Goon, where she has been collecting sap for about 13 years, she started collecting sap about 10 days early in March. The weather was so warm that there was no need to wear snowshoes in Nevarra.
The couple turns the syrup into sugar and candy at local demonstrations and donates much of the rest.
„For us, this is a really expensive hobby,“ Lemieux joked.
As of mid-March, the maple buds had not opened, and we were able to collect as much or more sap as in previous years.
„I wonder what next year will be like?'' Nevarra said. „That's unknown. And that could be a good thing, or it could be a bad thing. Hopefully, it's a good thing.“