Maple trees get a jump on syrup season thanks to climate change

Sugar bush tours are still weeks away, but recent warm temperatures have the sap already running on James Richardson’s Dunnville-area maple syrup farm.

“We tapped last Wednesday, which is a week earlier than we did last year,” Richardson said on Feb. 13, referring to the 1,200 maple trees on his farm near the Grand River.

“And we had as much (sap) in the first two days last week as we did in all of February last year,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean anything as far as how good a season it’s going to be. It just means the sap’s running now, so we’d better be gathering it.”

The fast start to maple syrup season continues a trend of maple trees loosening their sap earlier and earlier.

“Part of global warming,” Richardson said. “Our seasons have really changed. We come to expect that we might have some earlier warm temperatures, and we expect now that we aren’t going to get frost until Thanksgiving.”

Whereas farmers used to count on frost by the first week of September, the mercury dropping that early would be “unheard of now,” Richardson said.

While staff at Richardson’s Farm Market have had to get busy gathering sap, there is hope in the long-range forecast that the trees will not run dry just yet as overnight temperatures stay below freezing.

“We want it to get cold every night and then the trees stop, and then run during the day,” Richardson explained.

“These are perfect temperatures, really. There’s lots of negative temperatures (overnight) and then getting up above zero (during the day).”

Being able to make syrup earlier does not necessarily mean the farm will produce more this year since warm overnight temperatures in March or April could curtail the operation.

“So it’s just moving the syrup season rather than expanding it,” Richardson said.

Shifting the tourist season is a trickier proposition. The farm offers sugar bush tours in March, with maple taffy tasting and a maple-heavy brunch menu after an educational walk through the woods.

“People kind of expect it in March, and that’s when we are doing tours this year,” Richardson said.

At Westfield Heritage Village in Rockton, maple syrup season returns over eight days in March and April, with traditional syrup-making demonstrations and other maple-themed festivities during a two-hour experience.

Despite the pattern of milder winters, visitors may yet have a snowy troop through the sugar bush, Richardson said.

“We could still get minus-five and a blizzard during March break,” he laughed. “Winter isn’t over yet.”

Fruit crops ride out temperature swings

Fruit and vegetable farmers in Norfolk County hope the warmer weather does not inspire their fields to mimic the maple trees and start to bloom.

Sharon Judd of Meadow Lynn Farms in Simcoe said her strawberry plants are riding out the recent temperature swings underneath a protective layer of straw.

“They are still dormant,” Judd said. “We cover them up to hold the frost in and keep them insulated longer.”

Several more cycles of freezing and thawing could do some damage, she added, but so far the plants look to be in good shape.

Other perennial crops like rhubarb and asparagus are also likely fine, Judd said, since they start in the ground and can stay protected for now. But apple farmers like Simcoe’s Amanda Dooney are keeping a worried eye on their orchards.

“We don’t want the trees moving along at this point because winter is not over,” Dooney said. “And if they start moving along, we’re going to have more risk of frost (damage) when the blossoms are out.”

Ideally, she added, the buds “are staying dormant and sitting tight for a few more weeks.”

While quickly going from frigid to springlike temperatures is less than ideal, Delhi farmer David VanDeVelde of Wholesome Pickins expects the recent weather will have little effect on crop yield or quality.

“I don’t think it’s been cold enough to cause any severe damage, and I don’t think this warm, nice weather is going to be enough to get anything to come to life,” said VanDeVelde, who grows strawberries, asparagus, pumpkins and other veggie and grain crops.

“Ideally, if we had our way, we’d get six inches of snow in December and it would just stay all winter” to keep the ground temperature consistent and insulate the crops, he added.

“One extreme to the next is not the greatest way to go about growing crops.”

But climate change has shifted the definition of seasonal weather such that delayed winters, cooler springs and warm falls have become more common, leaving farmers no choice but to adjust.

“It’s better for it to not get too warm too early because it’s inevitably going to freeze in May,” VanDeVelde said.

“It always does.”

JP Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The program is funded by the Government of Canada.