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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?!?
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.
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.
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.)
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 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
Reminds me of the Himalayan pink rock salt labeled as 'non-gmo'. It was even the 'verified non-gmo project' label too!
Truly, informative labels for the informed consumer.
Then you have no taste. Pancake syrup (artificially colored sugary sludge) doesn't even remotely resemble real maple syrup in flavor.
It's for the kids. At 1, 3, and 5, they can't tell the difference. Most of it ends up on the table or in their hair anyways.
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??
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.
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.
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.
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...
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