For Reuben Somero, this year’s maple syrup season has been fun: “We had fun during the season, we do it because we enjoy it,” he said. But this year’s yield has been lower than expected – not spoiling the fun, “but we were hoping for more.”
Somero is a co-owner of Somero Maple Farm in New Ipswich, one of many maple syrup businesses in the state of New Hampshire. The state, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, has seen a marked decrease in maple syrup production this year. Despite there being about the same number of taps in the state as in 2020, this year saw a dip in production by 27,000 gallons.
Somero, and some others in the area, are reporting the same. “You hear a lot of people saying that, that they didn’t do as good this year,” Somero said.
Somero Maple Farm saw a lot less production than what he was hoping for – a little over half of what they made last year. It should have been more, he said, due to the amount of taps the farm had.
“Usually we get runs in February,” Somero said, referring to the process of sap moving through the maple trees. “We didn’t get anything until March.” And even after that, he said, the season for gathering the sap ended quickly.
“It wasn’t really good at all,” Somero said.
According to Ben Fisk, owner of Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple, the whole process is based on the weather.
“It just stayed too cold for too long,” Fisk said, “and then finally when it warmed up, it just warmed right up, and we didn’t see the mild days that we needed to.”
The process of gathering maple sap requires the sap to be running through the trees, which happens most easily when the weather is in a warming and cooling cycle – not if it’s too cold, and not if temperatures get too hot.
According to Fisk, anywhere from 25 to 35% of crop gathering occurs in the months of January and February, months where the weather was simply too cold to gather the necessary maple sap. When March came around, they had already lost about a month and a half of time, and by the end of March, temperatures jumped too high.
For some syrup producers in the area, production didn’t dip at all – according to Tanya Roberts of Parker’s Maple Barn in Mason. This year held no difference from other years.
“Our sugar season was fairly normal,” she said.
For Fisk, having only produced about 65 to 85% of the product he made last year, the solution for now is to raise his prices.
“The price of maple syrup’s going up this year, for sure, in all places,” he said.
Somero, for his part, will try to avoid this outcome.
Both Somero and Fisk are confident that this year’s production outcomes do not mean that next year’s will be similar.
“I don’t think it’s a pattern,” Somero said. “I just think you have up years and you have down years, like anything with agriculture.”
Fisk said that previous years have seen varying outcomes, including a recent year that reported the world’s largest crop of maple syrup for a season.
“You just never know,” Fisk said, saying that the weather is very changeable. The drought last year didn’t help, he said, but this summer has already seen an alleviation to previous drought conditions.
“We’re all positive and think that this coming season should be better,” Fisk said.