Maple syrup Production and Tent Caterpillars
Steve VanderMark a CCE educator in St. Lawrence who has work in this area shares some findings:
Our experience was that sugar content of sap was generally decreased the season following major FTC defoliation. Such sap requires more boiling to produce syrup of the proper density. That requires more fuel, fossil or renewable, raising cost of energy input. A longer dwell time for boiling sap in the evaporator often means darker syrup, considered usually of lower grade. Thus returns may be lowered in volume, grade, and dollars. Reverse osmosis (RO) sap processing will concentrate sap before boiling, but it can’t add sugar content to increase syrup volume; it just removes some of the water. RO units are attractive as fuel savers and “dwell-reducers” and may help those producers choosing to tap. They can be fairly expensive though. Steve Childs can no doubt further explain RO’s. So some of our producers said the sap was hardly worth boiling and others decided not to even tap. The latter were usually experiencing heavy defoliation the season before and heeded suggestions referenced from prior outbreaks.
One specific source was Prof. Doug Allen’s article ‘Forest Owners Must Adjust to Tent Caterpillar Defoliation’ in “The New York Forest Owner”, Vol. 42: No.4, July /Aug. ‘04, pg. 16, (member magazine of the NY Forest Owners Assoc.), which recommended avoiding summer silvicultural activity during heavy defoliation and tapping the following Spring. Up to them. Contact www.nyfoa.org for a copy of this article.
A CCE Staff Preparedness/Curriculum Development Resource Guide for Tent Caterpillar (Forest & Eastern) Outbreak Programming is also available. Contact Steve (sfv1@cornell.edu) for a pdf version.
Gateway to Cornell Maple Production Resources: http://maple.dnr.cornell.edu/
Lori Bushway | CCE County Programs, Campus News, Cornell Links