Slashdot Mirror
No More Pancake Syrup? Climate Change Could Bring an End To Sugar Maples (sciencemag.org)
An anonymous reader shares a research report: Savor that sticky, slightly nutty sweetness drenching your Sunday morning pancakes now. The trees that make maple syrup will struggle to survive climate change, a new study reveals. Researchers had thought that pollution from cars, factories, and agriculture might buffer sugar maples against an increasingly warm and dry climate by supplying soils with fertilizing nitrogen. But the new analysis, which examined 20 years of tree and soil data in four Michigan locations, finds that extra boost of nitrogen won't be enough. Instead, the researchers report today in Ecology, a lack of water will stunt the trees' growth.
For the love of God, won't somebody please think of the pancakes?!?
Don't worry, we will soon invent the replicator and you can make all you want. Of course, it will be powered by a coal fired electrical plant.
A lot less calories and I like the taste better. It's a pain to find the ones that are more fruit than cane sugar though.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Well no shit, Sherlock.
Cracker Barrel still uses the one true Maple syrup. Everywhere else uses the disgusting fake stuff.
Sadly, Cracker Barrel uses a 50/50 blend now.
Most consumers will never notice, most of the pancake syrups in the supermarket are just manufactured sugar with some coloring.
And well, another corporate cartel with price fixing experiences bad karma, let me shed a tear for you. As for the trees, I do feel bad for them.
I believe that human caused climate change is occurring considering everything else we've changed on earth (we literally move mountains now) but I don't think it means the end of the world. Folks who are predicting the end of the world are likely being overly alarmist but that's not to say we should sit back and do nothing. I've seen increasingly worse local flooding in recent years and weather's becoming more unstable. The worry isn't so much that the world will end but that it is going to be more difficult to make a living as the things we've been use to (relatively stable climate and weather for close to a millennium) might be going away. Change is expensive.
I live in Canada, I like maple syrup and it makes sense that if it warms on average that trees might not do so well. Trees are rooted and take decades to mature so I imagine to compensate it's going to take a few decades to move them north to more appropriate climates. So saying there's no more maple syrup seems silly, saying that there might be shortage and it'll get more expensive makes more sense.
Enjoy your morning gruel, you poor, pancakeless soul
There are these things called pipes and technology called agriculture. The same processes we use to do the studies are the same processes we use to fix the problems the studies uncover.
I've been to restaurants that will serve it to you at an extra charge.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
it's what makes preserves... well... preserve. But cheap jellies that are mostly sugar end up tasking like cheap candy because, well, that's what they are.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Let's be clear on terminology. "Pancake syrup" contains little or no maple. Maybe distilled smoke extract from a tiny amount of maple wood, but probably not even that. It's high fructose corn syrup & caramel color.
Only 100% pure maple syrup is made from actual tree sap. As a New Yorker living on the Vermont border, I can assure you there's a difference between the good stuff and that crap they put in the clear plastic bottles.
Just have Nestle give it all back.
Do you really believe that even now, anything natural goes into that shit anymore?
Hmm, bottle here in my hand says 55/45 blend. But yeah, can confirm it's not pure.
I make maple syrup on a *very* small scale in a major city. This "scientific" article is all bunk. 1) First, large scale maple producers already know that watering the trees while tapping helps production. If global warming from politicians hot air continues towards long term winter droughts,, Maple bushes can be irrigated. 2) There are over 3000 variety of maples right now and the sugar industry is growing out hybrids that can produce close to a 10% sugar content sap ( normal is 2%) Nature will provide drought tolerant if needed. 3) no-one uses pails. Maple syrup production is hi-tech: reverse osmosis is amazing 4) North America has an over-abundance of maple trees and syrup production 5) What is not mentioned that is serious potential for maple blight like oak wilt to destroy a lot trees 6) Canada 's political socialized maple syrup production does more harm to producers that climate change ever will Sure I only make about 7 gallons a year but I know more than these blowhards
The excerpt is somewhat less than explanatory.
Michigan is literally surrounded by fresh water and that doesn't seem to be changing. If " that extra boost of nitrogen won't be enough" because water, then why do you think the trees won't have enough water?
Maybe there's a reason, but the excerpt provided does not give it or even hint at it. (And I won't break tradition by actually reading TFA.)
... less maple syrup means more usage of corn syrup. Since corn-growing states tend to have a lot of climate change deniers, this will be viewed as a feature.
No need to panic.
or, it 'could' cause them to proliferate to the point where there are way too many, and maple syrup becomes our main energy source.
The best maple syrup (due to a colder climate...) comes from eastern Canada, so I'd like to see a similar study done in Ontario and Quebec. This may just be another case of climate change preferentially destroying a US crop. Fortunately, it is produced mostly in blue states, so Real Americans can just keep pouring on that flavourless HFC-based slime.
(BTW, I grew up in NH, so I'm not shilling for the Canadian co-ops...)
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Canada (and Russia) should have sugar maples by 2070
Michigan can switch to cotton and, eventually, sugarcane.
This is why we have a strategic maple syrup reserve in Canada:
https://www.theglobeandmail.co...
First off, Michigan? Really?! It's a maple tree. It declares its nationality with thousands and thousands of national flags on each and every tree. Maple trees were always just-visiting Michigan. If you want maple, know that they'll always be alive and well in their home country.
Second, maple was always arbitrary. Personally, I enjoy the less-sweet, sharper taste of birch syrup even more. You'll find them combined quite often -- that's a good stepping-stone if you need such a device.
Pfffff. Michigan maples. I mean, really. What are you thinking? What's next? British wine? Australian tea? I know: Texas tofu.
Maybe that's a USA thing. Real maple syrup is actually quite common in restaurants in Québec.
#DeleteFacebook
But there's still that liquid-abortion that is artificial syrup.
Sure, but only poor people will have to use that.
This story is just "fake news" to anybody with money.
No sig today...
Because the climate has been utterly static and changeless for millions of years until the evil oil companies snapped their fingers. Or maybe everything changes over time, and species adapt? It's almost as if the global warming climate alarmists disbelieve in natural selection, isn't it?
I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.
#DeleteFacebook
+1 informative to you.
#DeleteFacebook
Sugar maples are not going away. Their range will just shift northward. There will be fewer in Michigan, but more in northern Ontario.
Corn is subsidized in the US, making maple flavored corn syrup far cheaper and common.
Are they just talking about the ones in Vermont or in Canada, too ?
Are there places in Europe that produce maple syrup ?
link
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
My dad has several trees up on the farm that he taps to make his own. If you have time & patience, it's free, and you know there's no cane sugar in it. ;-)
"Free"? Only if you don't count the cost of the fuel you'll burn reducing the sap down to syrup or assign any value to your time. There also is the cost of the taps, buckets, and other gear in the process which aren't expensive but not free either. The process of making the syrup from sap takes many many hours. It takes about 40 parts sap to make 1 part syrup. I suppose you could do it over a wood fire outdoors but that's harder to control and you still need a large supply of wood.
All to get something you can buy from the store for a few dollars. It's an interesting thing to do (I've done it) but not really practical from an economic point of view. The opportunity cost is pretty high to make maple syrup unless you do it industrial scale.
If the average temperature does rise, that means more water in the atmosphere due to greater evaporation of the oceans. How anyone can make the claim there will be "less water" with absolutely zero data to back that up nor any historical precedent for changing climate zones, is beyond me,
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've found that in the US people prefer fake syrup. I personally find it unconsumable, I'd much rather just use butter and rub it in sausage/bacon grease, but most people prefer the thick stay on top gross stuff. That's my observation from hosting brunches anyway.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Nope. Nothing grows further North than Michigan. It's where the edge of the flat world is.
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
There's a brand at my local store that is made with real sugar, at least. The price isn't significantly higher than the HFCS stuff.
Who cares? Neither one has any flavor worth bothering with. It's a false economy. It seems cheap but still is somehow overpriced.
Pure maple syrup is $20 for a tiny little bottle. Too expensive for my tastes.
Then you have no taste. Pancake syrup (artificially colored sugary sludge) doesn't even remotely resemble real maple syrup in flavor. I don't regard them as being even in the same food group much less substitutes. If your local store charges that much then shop online. You can get awesome burbon barrel aged maple syrup for $30 and that's a specialty item. (not affiliated in any way but I've bought this stuff and it's great) A small bottle of normal maple syrup in my grocery store costs $8-12. You can get a gallon for less than $50 and that will last a year or more for most people.
If this article is anything to go by it got a lot less real. What all these sorts of articles (there was one about coffee being wiped out a year or so ago) completely fail to take account of is that if one area is becoming less hospitable to a particular plant another area is almost certainly becoming more hospitable. The regions where certain crops will grow changes over time even without human-made climate change: the Romans used to have vineyards in the UK, something which is only recently again becoming feasible with rising temperatures.
Having to move to another region will be disruptive but that is nowhere near the same as claiming that maple production will be wiped out. It will just move further north to colder, wetter climes. Human-induced climate change is a serious problem and we have to act to curb it but I do wish we could "keep it real" when discussing the problems it will cause: these are bad enough without stupid articles like this gratuitously inflating them and making it easier for the deniers to ignore all warnings because some are so ridiculously wrong.
Maybe that's a USA thing. Real maple syrup is actually quite common in restaurants in Québec.
Yeah, I've always been amazed when going to Supermarkets in Canada. Freaking big cans of it, and not all that expensive. I always bring several back.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'm not able to opine on whether there is a difference or not.
Then you've never actually tasted the real thing. The difference isn't subtle.
But, the vast majority of consumers don't seem able to tell. Or they prefer the HFCS version :(
They can tell the difference. The reason they buy the cheap crap is because it is cheap. You can buy a gallon of Ms Butterworth for less than $5. A gallon of real maple syrup will cost you $40-60. And yes it is worth the cost unless you are really tight for cash. And if you can't afford the real stuff you probably shouldn't be wasting money on crappy colored sugar sludge anyway.
Well that wasn't hard....
http://dedutch.com/menus/the-p...
First item on the menu... 'The Canadian'...'Served with genuine maple syrup'
Not yet, but should it become rare somehow, watch them go nuts over it.
In my experience, when it comes to expensive dining, it's not the taste that matters but showing off that you can afford it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Aww, someone's doc told him to lay off the sweets...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Maybe there's a reason, but the excerpt provided does not give it or even hint at it.
Well there is the fact that to make maple sap move in quantity you need freeze thaw cycles. If temperatures warm sufficiently such that the temperature doesn't dip below freezing then you cannot make maple syrup in meaningful quantities.
And how long will it take for those Maples to grow in Northern Ontario? Is the soil suitable? Here, maples prefer rich bottom land soil. Are there other tree species that can move north faster and/or adapt faster? Here, Alders are the primary pioneer species, not surprisingly as they can fix their own nitrogen.
There's also the question of whether warming will cause more or less rainfall. The Maples around here love rain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Why is it that every time climate change gets brought up it's 30 or 40 assumptions deep into a chain of cold-sweat fever dreams about shit that people can totally live without anyway?
What sort of mouthbreathing drooltard can't make the connection between whole classes of trees dying and big problems on planet earth?
This isn't smartphone factories that are closing because of bad weather.
No sig today...
There is something about Maple Syrup that is really off-putting to me. I can't stand to be in the same room as anyone who is using it. Vinegar has a similar reaction to me. Something about being in a room with someone pouring vinegar on their chips, or maple syrup on their pancakes makes my stomach churn and completely kills my appetite
To each their own but you understand that this is very weird? We're talking six standard deviations from normal here. Not being judgemental - I have some foods I can't stand in certain preparations. But that sounds like you have something wildly unusual about your taste/smell receptors.
I'm not a picky eater- but anything with either of those smells is going to turn my stomach.
Based on your previous statement I gently disagree about you claiming to not be being a picky eater.
The fake stuff tastes better, anyways.
Yea, well I haven't seen no plants grow out of no toilets before!
I prefer fried chicken and waffles you insensitive clod! Still need maple syrup.
Instead, the researchers report today in Ecology, a lack of water will stunt the trees' growth.
So, life on the planet will become unbearable due to global warming/climate change causing the seas to rise, whilst simultaneously maple sugar trees will go away for lack of water?
What's next, increased CO2 levels will lead to a mass extinction of all pigs, cutting off our only source of truly delicious bacon? (I do NOT consider so-called "Turkey Bacon" either delicious OR bacon.)
Ken
Or Brawndo - it's got electrolytes!
Ken
Hmmm ... over a wood fire outdoors is the only way I've ever seen it made, and it's the traditional way of doing it, and, oddly, by the time you own a maple forest you might also have a large supply of wood. It's been made that way for a couple of hundred years.
I have a friend whose uncle makes it. He has a custom made (by him) boiler system with a series of vessels, which is over a big giant fire chamber. He makes several hundred gallons of it at a time.
It's labour intensive, but once you have your startup costs for the hoses, taps, and buckets, the actual material cost is pretty low each year since he owns the land. But he can nicely supplement his income by selling some of it off once he's given a jug of it to his family members (who usually stand around and help tend the fire anyway).
Sugaring season is as much a social event as anything. This was something traditionally done by farmers, and much of it still is -- so the labour isn't something they're afraid of, and it's happening in a season when the ground is covered in snow anyway since it's early spring.
Throughout the history of maple syrup, that was anything but true.
Humans have just become lazy and detached from how actual food gets made. Time was, much of your time was spent doing these things.
But, I assure you, the best maple syrup is still made by old men on farms standing outside in the snow putting wood on the fire -- and that stuff you don't just walk into a supermarket and grab off the shelf.
Humans don't need maple syrup.
There are lots of things we don't technically need that are still worth having. Maple syrup falls into this category. I can live without it but the world would be a poorer place.
There are many synthetic syrups on store shelves ...
And they are terrible and have nothing even close to the flavor of real maple syrup.
It's like a guy at work telling me that I would not want any of the pork sausage he just made. I tried it and he was right.
Sounds like he wasn't very good at making sausage.
I was raised on store-bought sausage and fresh sausage tastes nasty.
To each their own but that's decidedly weird. That's like preferring Kraft Mac-N-Cheese to the real deal. Some store brand sausages are quite good but hand made sausages by someone who knows what they are doing are usually notably better. Not everyone knows what they are doing obviously.
I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.
The article is badly flawed. Water isn't going to be the determinant. I'm not certain how they projected that the Northeast of North America is goint to turn into a desert anyhow.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
wtf?
Ontario and Quebec are literally covered in maple trees. Maple syrup productions is practically a cultural tradition in Quebec. The whole Canada/Maple Syrup thing is one of the stereotypes which is actually true.
How are you seriously wondering if CANADA, the country with a maple leaf on it's flag, will be able to grow maple trees??
And how long will it take for those Maples to grow in Northern Ontario? Is the soil suitable? Here, maples prefer rich bottom land soil.
They grow fine in the U.P. of Michigan, northern Ontario shouldn't have any problems. And hey, guess what? They didn't get that name because there aren't any maples in Ontario. ;-)
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Even if corn wasn't subsidized, it'd likely still be cheaper than maple. Lots more ramp up time with trees, a limited amount can be tapped from each, requires a larger growing area, etc. My sugar maple is relatively young (like 3 years old) and is nowhere near thick enough to tap. I'm guessing they need 8-10 years at least.
Sugar maples are not going away. Their range will just shift northward.
The problem is that less sunlight falls on northern latitudes. While I like the idea of maple syrup from the Northwest Territories, at the southern border you'll still have about four months of the year where where you only have a couple hours of sunlight a day, and conditions are pretty arid as well. Can a sugar maple survive in that environment? Yes, 'trees' could, life certainly can, but can a specific tree make that adjustment in a 100-year period?
The whole Canada/Maple Syrup thing is one of the stereotypes which is actually true.
It is known...
Ezekiel 23:20
Shame about the racist name. I'd eat there if they renamed it to Caucasian American Barrel.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
well because scare stories drive page hits.
Coffee, bananas, maple syrup, skinny, attractive women. These are things rumored to be going extinct.
They are also make for a much more interesting headline than "global temperature averages are thought to change by X in the next 30 years" (Usually some vanishingly small number, relative to what we're used to dealing with in every day life.)
I am no scientist, but I am a hobby maple syrup producer. We make maple syrup from a variety of trees that are available locally to us Red, Silver, Norway and Sugar. The difference is Red and Silver have lower sugar content and subsequently take more energy to convert to syrup. According to the abstract, this study focused on Acer saccharum (Sugar maple). I wonder for the short-term (20-50 years) the other species might out last sugar and what you see is a spike in real maple syrup sales. Just my thoughts.
Many people would have no idea because they just buy that wretched, caramel colored, artificial maple flavored bottle of high fructose corn syrup. Real, actually, maple syrup is usually quite a bit more money.
the problem is how we'd respond to the changes. For example, if the trend keeps up large parts of the Middle East will become uninhabitable. There will be massive numbers of refugees forced to migrate. After all, even small changes in temperature can have big impacts on crop yields. We're already experiencing some large scale migration of Muslims. Since these folks are being forced to leave they're not integrating into their new host societies. This is creating tensions which autocrats, dictators and Strongmen are quick to capitalize one.
If all humans were rational climate change would be no big deal. But they're not. So those of us who _are_ rational need to head these kinds of problems off at the pass.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Says someone who has never had freshly boiled, light maple syrup. The stuff you get in the store is typically Grade A Medium or Dark. That's fine, and better than any artificial syrup product, but it's not like Vermont Fancy Light. In my experience, the only way you can get that unless you live in Vermont is to boil it yourself. If you have it available on your grocery store shelf, consider yourself very, very, lucky. And send me some, pls!
Hello. I don't often get a chance to talk to people that live in the 1980's. I have some bad news about Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby...
Said no Canadian ever.
How could you not know that deciduous trees drop their leaves and hibernate during the winter? Being further North gives more sunlight for the trees during the summer when the trees have leaves. The only problem for the tree would be if the winter exceed its lower temperature limit.
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
Delete this! Eh.
Have gnu, will travel.
Pancake syrup and maple syrup are two very different things. You can certainly put maple syrup on your pancakes and waffles. But you can also put blackberry syrup on them as well. And you can use maple syrup to make candies, top icecream, or glaze donuts. But pancake syrup has no use outside of putting on pancakes, especially when feeding to children who don't know any better.
My parents used to make simple syrup from brown sugar instead of paying for the usual colored sludgy pancake syrups. I found it too thin for my liking, but not everyone could afford maple syrup at the time. (it's much cheaper now than it used to be)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yet the Michigan Wolverines are named for an animal that is doesn't appear in Michigan anymore.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It seems you'll have to wait a few more decades.
#DeleteFacebook
Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.
#DeleteFacebook
If you already have the trees, taps, and buckets, then collection is free.
40 to 1? Are you trying to make maple bouillon cubes?
And it's not hard to control at all. A simple double boiler will do for any small batch. Periodically check on it for the desired consistency and to make sure the bottom pot still has water in it.
What next? No one should bother making jam because picking fruit off the trees, cutting it up, and boiling it down is too labor intensive and too hard to control?
I'm even older than that... I live in the 60s
Now, get off my lawn.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Yes, I'm actually aware of my countries flag. I'm also aware of how maples grow here in the west, though not so much in the east, which is why I raised some questions. Too many people think trees are like Ents, just pick up and move.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Butter and eggs are good for you.
I've found that in the US people don't know there's a difference. It wasn't until my wife came back from a trip to Maine with actual maple syrup that I realized I had been eating maple flavored corn syrup. At my grocer, 100% pure maple syrup is 5-10 times as expensive, but worth every penny.
Ontario is huge. When talking about northern Ontario, are we talking about around Lake Superior or around James Bay?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
How are you seriously wondering if CANADA, the country with a maple leaf on it's flag, will be able to grow maple trees??
Are you sure it's a maple leaf? https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3670
This is crap. The sugar maples are doing just fine, and every year the yield is different based on the spring melt.
Well, it's reasonable to worry, what with permafrost melting and such. But Canada has a lot of space north of where the trees are currently growing, so I'm not seriously worried about *that*.
OTOH, the summary pointed the finger at "not enough water", and people have been irrigating from before records started being kept. So unless the report was mis-summarized the headline is blatantly inflammatory.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The main problem with syrup in Canada is surpluses. . They have production quotas to prevent overproduction and support higher wholesale prices.
The world is not going to run out of pancake syrup, and stupid alarmist articles like this are counter-productive at getting people to take climate change seriously.
I had to submit and start buying both types because people would complain about:
1) the maple flavor
2) the sweetness
3) that it soaked in
I agree also that most people don't realize they aren't usually using maple syrup, but also, once they realize, most seem to prefer the fake stuff.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
BTW, what happened with Brad's wife? Why was she fired?
Life is not for the lazy.
"Free"? Only if you don't count the cost of the fuel you'll burn reducing the sap down to syrup or assign any value to your time. There also is the cost of the taps, buckets, and other gear in the process which aren't expensive but not free either. The process of making the syrup from sap takes many many hours. It takes about 40 parts sap to make 1 part syrup. I suppose you could do it over a wood fire outdoors but that's harder to control and you still need a large supply of wood.
He's retired, he's had the gear for years, and he's got tons of wood from dead-falls.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Fair enough, and I wouldn't have been surprised by your comment if someone had suggested that Canada could pick up the slack on Banana production, but come on ... Maple Syrup? If there's one thing I expect people to know about us it's that we're all a bunch of maple syrup swilling lumberjacks.
The best global warming headline ever is this one from the BBC:
Great tits cope well with warming
Time to offend someone
Well you missed the whole point...
The real problem, is that, ideally, you need temperature deltas around the freezing point to get the sugar out in the water that you collect through the taps. Ideally something like -6deg.C to +6deg.C everyday. Flowing days if you will... Not too much wind either.
The weather is all crazy and stuff nowadays. So you can get a terrible season with only a few good flowing days. That is the problem.
Add to that that:
1- sugar and water won't flow at all if it is too cold (duh!!!!)
2- the taps you drilled in the tree will start plugging-up after a while (normal response to the "agression" that the drilling is), like in about 30 days
3- sap will start to flow and ruin the taste if spring comes in early (contrary to popular belief, what is boiled into syrup is not regular sap, as it is otherwise unpalatable when the burgeoning process kicks-in too early, we call it "eau de bourgeon", literally burgeoning water)
So you are bound to only hope for a few pumping days in the season. Anything between mid-January to mid-April can now be considered "fair game"... Sugar producing is not for the faint of heart...
Reply to This Parent Share
... climate change deniers will soon be out with an advertising campaign telling us all that petro-chemically flavored High Fructose Corn Syrup will actually taste better than maple syrup. Besides when there is no more maple syrup, eventually, nobody will remember what it tasted like so you'll have to like the artificial stuff.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
If you already have the trees, taps, and buckets, then collection is free.
That's like saying owning a house is free once you've made all the payments.
40 to 1? Are you trying to make maple bouillon cubes?
Yes 40 to 1. I'm just the messenger here and you don't have to take my word for it.
A simple double boiler will do for any small batch.
Small batch? You need 10 gallons of sap to make a single quart of syrup so that isn't exactly a tiny double boiler.
They make maple syrup in Michigan? Not seeing any issues in Vermont. 2016 was a record 1.99 million gallons and 2017 was just below that with 1.98 million. Tent caterpillars are a bigger threat to the Maple trees than warm weather. As long as it is below freezing at night and above freezing during the day during sugaring season, the syrup will flow very well.
I noticed crappy US pancake syrup a while back....
I only bother to make waffles at home a couple times a year maybe.
And I'm ~50 years old, so I remember when I was a kid that most of the name-brand syrups sold in the midwest-US had maple syrup in them.
And I remember as a kid that I didn't like Karo (corn) syrup, because it didn't taste as good as the real maple syrup stuff....
So I'm eating and pondering the Hungry Jack syrup bottle and I noticed that it said that the ingredients was just corn syrup, colorings and flavorings.
It tasted good enough, but I thought "well that sucks? I thought it was maple syrup?"...(I only do this rarely, and I want real syrup dammit)
So the next time I went to the store I looked through them all to see what ones were still made with maple syrup.
NONE of the nationally-known brands were. They were all just corn syrup. A dead giveaway is when they say that they need no refrigeration, and real syrup had to be kept in the refrigerator after opening. All of the REAL maple syrup said that it must be refrigerated after opening....
So then I paid $15 for a bottle of organic maple syrup (Wild Harvest) that was about 80% as big as the Hungry Jack bottle was that cost $5. The ingredients said just "maple syrup". And went another round of waffles.
The Wild Harvest did taste significantly better , but it was very watery. It was not at all the way I recall from my youth.
And when I returned to the store and looked at all the other real-maple-syrup brands, they all appeared to be about as watery as the Wild Harvest stuff was.
The cheaper brands like Hungry jack and Mrs Butterworth are the correct thickness, but they don't taste like real maple does. And all of the gorumet/organic real maple syrup brands are too watery.
So I expect that (at least in the US?) if you wanted good-quality syrup these days, you'd have to buy the 100% maple syrup stuff, and then boil it down yourself to get rid of the excess water.
I've found that in the US people don't know there's a difference. It wasn't until my wife came back from a trip to Maine with actual maple syrup that I realized I had been eating maple flavored corn syrup. At my grocer, 100% pure maple syrup is 5-10 times as expensive, but worth every penny.
My family was poor when I was growing up. We didn't use store-bought syrup; we made our own! 3 cups white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 cups water, 2 tsp Mapeline, and 1 tsp vanilla (boil sugars and water, remove from heat and stir in flavorings). I dislike the fake stuff they sell in stores. I buy dark amber maple syrup from Costco.
This article shows a fundamental lack of understanding about maple sugaring. The reality is that maple sugar is produced over a broad season across a broad range of geographic areas and even with large variations on altitude and what side of the mountain your sugar bush is located on. On top of that, for millions of years the winters and springs have varied year to year and sugar maples still survive. This article is just scary fake news, FUD.
If these people writing the scary FUD news would actually do the real work of maple sugaring they would understand this.
Unfortunately fake news like this will get picked up in the press and spread around while the truth gets ignored.
Fortunately, those of us who really do maple sugaring know better than to listen to idiots like this.
Birch syrup around here, makes interesting beer. As for bananas, it is surprising how many people have them growing in their yards around here now a days, along with palm trees. The bananas even produce fruit the odd year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I see Kochsucker denialism.
Nothing more or less
Yes and no; we've got all kinds of maple trees, but the range of the sugar maple doesn't actually extend that far north in either province. From the latitude of the great lakes on down, roughly.
That being said, Canada will be the last place to run out of maple syrup, and I don't doubt that the tree will spread north as things warm up.
Log in or piss off.
Don't know about production-quality trees, but you've got sugar maple trees growing wild in an area in TEXAS. They grow well throughout the southern US (don't know about Florida). They make great ornamentals as well--The grow faster than a white oak, slower than a red oak. They just don't compete well in the wild with other trees (including red maples, which the native folks used to tap for a "sugary drink") there. So if the climate does move north why won't those there still live? Maybe plantations for new production, if needed.
How long does it take for the seeds to ripen? Here the Big Leafed Maple flowers early in the spring and drops its keys late in the fall, so about 8-9 months. Short season means seeds don't develop.
Maple syrup production is also dependent on the correct weather in the spring, warm days and cold nights. How the weather ends up in the far north is a big question mark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Getting people to think about how something will affect their lives is great. But when they find out that you lied to them, they tend to get a bit mad.
Tyrants always pull the "we have to shape the truth for the public good" thing, but it's never convincing. It's an especially stupid thing to do when you're dealing with an undeniably true problem like climate change. Why piss people off with stupid lies when the truth is enough of a problem on it's own? Even if you're the kind of immoral shitbag who doesn't mind knowlngly lying to millions of people you should at least stop and consider that, tactically speaking, it's a shit approach.
Do the trees in Texas produce enough sap to make a significant amount of syrup? My understanding of maple harvesting is that the trees need a particular climate, with consistently below-freezing nights and above-freezing days, to get the sap to flow well. Consequently, even though there are maple trees all over, there are only two regions where maple sap is produced in significant quantity: the northeat US / southeast Canadian region, and some place in Russia.
Those are all great details, but the range of the sugar maple is still more than wide enough that warming hasn't affected production and even much greater warming will still allow harvesting in more northerly locales. Plus there's nothing preventing the maple from spreading further north as the climate warms.
More importantly, thought, TFA posits that lack of water will be the real issue rather than warming itself. This is doubly silly. Irrigation is a problem which we worked out millennia ago, and it can be used in especially dry regions. The majority of the sugar maple crop shouldn't require irrigation at all, though, meaning that the worst case scenario here is that Michigan maple syrup becomes slightly more expensive to produce than Quebec maple syrup.
Gets people to think about how climate change will affect their lives
No it doesn't. It just erodes your credibility.
Remember the wise advice of Mark Twain: "When in doubt, tell the truth."
Lack of water??? But all of the crazed liberals have been saying cities are going to flood as the sea levels rise from ice melting. Make up your minds!
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
i dont think i have ever even had real maple syrup before. recently i started checking all the bottles i pick up after the cvs brand syrup had a weird texture/consistency and yeah âoewell, shitâ
Exactly right. What is the matter with say, producing Maple Syrup in Greenland instead of New Hampshire? Might even get a longer sap season out of it!
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Lying to people just makes the whole rumor of Climate change as false grow.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
At which point Greenland will pick up production, at$.75/bottle, to undersell Canada.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Plenty of soil bottomland in the Tundra, once it melts.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Most of Ontario (and Quebec) is basically bedrock, the Canadian Shield, which was scoured clean by the glaciers.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What forests there are, are Boreal in nature, partially due to the crappy soil. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you have any citations for rich soil existing in the tundra, I'd be interested .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
You must be using some type of weird glasses. And you missed.
What do you think muskeg turns into once it rots? Of course, to rot, it must first melt...
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The study was in Michigan. Canada won't be having any trouble for quite a while yet.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Peat. Muskeg is just basically bog.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Euch! No wonder American dentists and diabetes doctors are so rich.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
It seems these researchers don't know anything about actual maple syrup production.
Most of the world's maple syrup is produced within 100km around where I live and I have visited multiple production sites.
There is an accumulation of >100cm of snow every winter in the forests here.
In the spring, the snow melts slowly and keeps the soil drenched for weeks.
This is the time when maple water is collected and also the time when tree growth happens.
Even with a warming of multiple degrees and a reduction in precipitation, there will still be snow accumulation and drenched soil in the spring.
Anyway, a mature maple tree has roots deep enough to be able to catch water below the water table, even during a summer drought.
It can take as much as 80 years for a maple tree to be mature enough to be a good producer of maple water.
Starting a new plantation takes decades, stunted growth or not.
Whether it takes 80 or 120 years will not affect the market.
The important is the production levels of the existing trees.
What could affect maple syrup production is if gets hot quicker in the spring.
The maple trees produce only during the period in the spring when it freezes during the night and it
If, due to global warming, the spring weather goes quickly from "winter-like" to hot enough that it does not freeze at night, then the maple season would be shortened.
There is already a huge variation in production levels from year to year caused by the differences in spring temperature.
aka fertilizer.
No. Fertilizer is stuff like nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. This is more like organic filler. Good for holding moisture and buffering fertilizer but by itself it grows stuff like crap. It also has a tendency to being acidic, which reduces most plants take up of fertilizer.
There's a peat bog down the road from me, the only trees growing in it are stunted Lodgepole Pine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Well, except for the facts documented in 99.91% of all formal accepted and peer reviewed journal articles in Climatology for, oh FORTY YEARS!!
And how long will it take for those Maples to grow in Northern Ontario? Is the soil suitable? Here, maples prefer rich bottom land soil. Are there other tree species that can move north faster and/or adapt faster? Here, Alders are the primary pioneer species, not surprisingly as they can fix their own nitrogen.
There's also the question of whether warming will cause more or less rainfall. The Maples around here love rain.
Quebec will become the maple syrup capital of Canada, possibly tied with Ontario and British Columbia.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Probably too warm of springs here in BC. We don't have much in the way of hardwood forests here either as the conifers usually out compete them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
And Peat is basically soil. Very good for growing a wide variety of things.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
And thus Japanese Maple which while it has a lower output of sap than sugar maple or bigleaf, still can be tapped for syrup, and LOVES acidic, organic fill soil.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
This, http://homeguides.sfgate.com/t..., claims that Maples like a pH of 5.5-7.3 whereas peat usually measures more like 4.4 according to http://thegardenofoz.org/peat..... Your article doesn't actually say what the ideal pH for Japanese Maples is though they do compare them to blueberries and various members of the Rhodo family so it sounds like they do like quite acidic soil, which is likely rare for an Acer. Someone else mentioned problems with the invasive Japanese Lilac in Sugar Maple forests. Lilacs hate acidic soil so I assume they're flourishing in closer to neutral soil.
They also like light fluffy well drained soil in general and like so many plants, need oxygen for the roots, not really bog plants. Add enough sand, at least equal to the peat and add perhaps 25% compost, cultivate, and it might work. Not really efficient for large plantations of Maples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Recipe for lawn soil, 60-70% sand, 15-20% peat and 15-20% compost. Peat makes a wonderful soil amendment, especially if starting with clay or needing to acidify your soil. By itself, no nutrients and no air for the roots to take oxygen up.
Most plants die when waterlogged due to lack of oxygen and peat forms under anaerobic conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
stupid alarmist articles like this are counter-productive at getting people to take climate change seriously.
Personally, I think they're doing a public service.
But that's just because I know Al Gore bought seaside real estate. (Or so I've been told.)
Of course, it could just mean he he feels Good Will Prevail. Or that he's not sure, but he wants to have an even greater personal take in the GWP outcome.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.