Waning winters are impacting the maple syrup industry.

News of the world environment

 NEWSLETTER | AUGUST 9, 2024

Pancakes Less Sweet

Maple syrup is a beloved culinary staple for many, a sweet liquid long treasured in North America that over the past century has grown into a billion-dollar industry.

Each year in late winter, sugarers from Maine to Indiana regularly trek out to their sugar bushes — stands of maple trees used to produce syrup — to begin collecting the long-awaited sap. But the sap that has reliably appeared each season has been slowly dwindling in certain locales, and has even vanished in others, thanks to a changing climate.

And now an entire industry is trying to understand how the climate and weather patterns affect temperatures in maple regions, to see what’s in store for this North American staple.

That includes researchers like Adam Wild, who wants to know exactly what’s in store for this sugary, natural, household good. As the director of Cornell University’s Uihlein Maple Research Forest, Wild helps oversee research across a more than 200-acre forest in Lake Placid, New York. The land is used to assist researchers with finding ways to grow the maple industry, especially in the Northeastern United States and Canada.

To be good, maple trees need to freeze. Mild winters and sudden warming periods aren’t necessarily unheard of in maple-producing areas, but the frequency of such periods in the past few years is increasing.

Rachel Kester, a Virginia-based journalist, delves into the efforts of maple producers to adapt to climate change.

READ MORE

Illustration by Tamas Pap

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