Local maple syrup producers are astonished by the early run of maple tree sap.
The trees around Lake Metro Park's Farm Park began pumping sap up from the roots the last week of January. That's when the cold air retreated and warmer 50s and 60s moved in. Maple trees respond to warming temperatures in late winter as a signal to begin sending sap up their trunks toward branches and buds.
But, it's not late winter. Its barely mid-winter. The unusually warm temperatures are due to warmer than normal water temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific. We call it El Nino.
Officials at Lake Farm Park have actually been making fresh maple syrup since the end of January. That's the earliest in the last 36 years.
It takes 40 gallons of tree sap boiled down to make one gallon of maple syrup. Eight hundred trees are tapped at the Lake County facility. They'll make about 400 gallons of maple syrup by the end of the season in mid March.
Check out our video tour of the Lake MetroPark Farm Park Sugar Bush:
LIVE: IT'S MAPLE SYRUP TIME?!?!
Posted by Mark Johnson WEWS on Thursday, February 4, 2016
