Sugar levels and climate change

[CampHamp]

An article (http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150326/NEWS11/150329421) in today's Union Leader said a century ago NH trees regularly produced 3.5% sugar and now average 2%. The story accounts for the change due to earlier thaws because of new climate conditions.

I can believe that, but wonder if there are other variables at work like a higher percentage of road-side tapping back then with large-canopy trees or more ice-chucking out of pails hung on trees. I'm not sure which data sources they use, either. Was there an exchange that tracked sap sugar back then or just a couple of farmer logs they could use?

My first two collections this year were 2%. I seem to always be around there, but got down to 1% at the end of last season. Since it's colder in Canada, are they getting sweeter sap than us?

Anyway, I expect the whole state is running well today. We got some morning sun in the southern area to keep this multi-day run moving. Guess we'll all be boiling tonight (or for some of you, holding some for Maple Weekend).

[Dill]

Well according to the geniuses that spend their time posting on the Leader comments. Its because we don't practice crop rotation and tap the same trees every year.

I'm surprised they didn't look at acid rain and soil ph, that seems to be a big factor. VT has better sugar content on a whole then we do. They also sit on limestone and not granite so better ph.

[Parker]

Guys lets all start paying a carbon tax to save the world from this out of control global warming! Its the end of march and its 19 deg this morning here in n.h.,,,,far too warm!
If you tap roadside trees with buckets your sap will be much sweeter than if you tap red maples in a crowded stand with 25 inches of vaccum........because of global warming..........really
I better apply for a $10000000000 grant and do some research, mabey get it published and peer reviewed...........way easier than having a real job.....

[spud]

We have not heard much from Al Gore lately have we? The glaciers may be melting in Alaska but they seem to be forming on my property.:)

Spud

[Russell Lampron]

I don't think that the earlier thaw theory has anything to do with it. For the last 2 seasons the thaw hasn't come until April and the sugar content here hasn't gone up a measurable amount. It may have more to do with the fact that a century ago most of the producers were farmers that raised cattle or sheep. Most of those farmers made maple syrup as the crop of the year. The sugar maples were allowed to grow around pastures and on fence rows while other tree species were not. Because the maples didn't have much competition for sunlight and nutrients they flourished with large crowns that helped produce more sugar. Now because of the decline in the family farm the pastures have grown in with all species of trees that compete with the maples for sunlight and nutrients.

Do you agree with me or with the person that the Union Leader interviewed that knows nothing about our state's agricultural background?

[R A Powers]

Parker, do I sense a bit of sarcasm in this post? It was nice to finally meet you yesterday. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me and that is one hellofa impressive pile of wood you have in the shed. Dick

[Parker]

With high vacuum you gets lots of low sugar sap you dont get with buckets or gravity tubing. Vacuum will run when buckets wont, but, often low sugar content. But sheepel will believe much of what they read without questioning it...

I dont know russ,,,the person that wrote the story is the expert,,,,bahh ,bbahhh,,,baahhhh, pretty easy to be a sheepel,,,,

People do littel critical thinking today

[PerryW]

yup I would say that in the old days, the sugar maples that were tapped were mostly along roads and the edge of fields where they had great sunlight and large crowns. Most of my trees are on the side of a ledgy cliff and have poor crowns.

Regarding climate change, the northeast and central US have had colder than normal temps over the past year or two, but 2014 was the warmest year on record if you look at worldwide temps.

[Russell Lampron]

Up until my generation my fathers side of the family were all dairy farmers. I had many talks with my father about the way that things used to be. He pointed out that everywhere that you find a stone wall was once a pasture. I haven't been in the woods in Andover very many times but do know that here in Loudon there are plenty of stone walls that seem to be in the middle of nowhere, most forming a rectangle or square that once was a field.

I tend to believe my father who was born in 1923 and grew up on and later owned a dairy farm than some crack pot that pulled a number out of the sky and formed an opinion based on a political agenda.

[eustis22]

please don;t confuse weather with climate. If you lived in California or the Southwest, you would have a different opinion.

[Parker]

Bahh bahhh bahhh, climate has always and will always change, during the last ice age 15000 or so years ago ice was2miles thick over my house....the southwest is a desert enviroment. Its hot and dry in a desert...

[Hop Kiln Road]

Gore is current a director of Apple Computer. They sold 34,000 iphones an hour, 24/7, last quarter at a 40% margin. Don't know about the weather, but he seems to know which way the wind is blowing.

[miohman]

Global warming... If it means that we can swim in Lake Superior every year with icebergs thats awesome!!! Oh did i mention that was the 16th of June.

Up here, my trees rarely even give 2% sap, but that's why they invented the RO.

Micah

Still waiting for some warm weather so we can make syrup

[Marc Duclos]

Global warming is a religion to a class of people that think when it is cold it means its hot. With that kind of thinking should they be aloud near the children and keep scaring them into a non fact that has yet to be proven to be the truth.
We have not heard much from Al Gore lately have we? The glaciers may be melting in Alaska but they seem to be forming on my property.:)

Spud

[Greyfox]

I love the fact that, once it started to get COLDER, they had to change the buzz-word from "global warning" to "climate change". If you agree with them you're enlightened, when you disagree you're a fool. It's a belief system, not a science. I hope that I live long enough to see the day when people look back on this period and say "I wonder what they were thinking. They really believed that we could change the climate!"

Doc

[BreezyHill]

I recall my grandfather saying" There are going to be cold winter, long winters, warm winters and short winters; some days it will rain when you want and others when you don't. So don't worry about and just make hay when the sun is shining." Born in 1896 died 1981, he could tell of droughts and I recall one year the pond got so hi we had fish on the back lawn 500 feet away. There was only one way out of the farm for a few months cause many roads were gone or culverts were missing. A 15 minute ride to town took nearly an hour with all the detours.

Just think of all the money people are paid for " global warming studies" I think it would be better spent to put in a pipe line to get water to Ca & Nv for the farms and people. Yes it is drier there than family has seen that is only 20 years old but those that are 80 have seen it before.

Cycle

They go around.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Yup, lets put in a pipeline and drain all the water from the great lakes to the West, What a great idea. If you live in a desert, expect to live in a desert. Don't try to change it into a garden of eden. My $.02

[Greyfox]

And if you tap the deep aquifers that take hundreds, if not thousand of years to replenish, than don't be shocked when you run out of water.

There are plenty of things that man has done to trash the place over the years; unsustainable water usage, overfishing of stock of some ocean fish, paving too much so rainwater can't penetrate etc. Global climate change is NOT real. The audacity to think that we could permanently change the climate if we WANTED to is ludicrous. Just like the weather, wait a while and it will change. This nonsense will pass eventually as well.

Doc

[R A Powers]

Russ, I totally agree with you. At the turn of the century New Hampshire was 85% cleared. Subsistence farming was in full swing. If you look at old pictures of the landscape you will see lots of fields and stone walls with a scattering of wood lots for fuel. Most of the trees that lined those walls were sugar maple and elm. The maples were used to make sugar and syrup and therefore to valuable to burn and the elms were just to big and hard to split for fire wood. The Andover historical society has some pictures of Kearsarge and Ragged taken around the turn of the century and all you can see are houses, barns, fields, pastures and even the old hotel that was on Kearsarge where picnic area is now on the Wilmot side. There is hardly a tree in site. I am only sixty nine and fields I can remember haying and hunting around are now totally over grown. Cycles in the weather have been going on for eons, some more drastic than others. All of this clamor over climate change and global warming has a lot more to do with politicians finding a way to make money off of it than it does with what is actually going on. Thats my 2 cents. Dick

[PerryW]

actually, the increased Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere can be directly attributed to the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels are a different isotope ratio than carbon dioxide from other sources. I think it is audacious to think that 8 billion people heating/cooling their homes and billions driving vehicles would not affect the environment.

[psparr]

The carbon dioxide is feeding my trees. Do you want to starve the baby trees?😄

[Ian MacMillan]

Just another reason why I've always called it the Union Misleader!

[delstele]

The world has cycles has for millions of years. Keeping track of these cycles for a few hundred years saying that we know what the earth is going to do in the next hundred year is a bit arrogant...Hell they can't ever forecast three days out.... The UP in Michigan used to be under the sea as evidence look at all the lime stone formations and petoskey stones... The earth is in constant change are humans making a impact I'm sure we are but not to the degree some would have you believe...

[Dill]

Russ, we cleared 45 acres this fall. One of my neighbors was decrying my cutting of "old growth trees". I pointed out I was simply reclaiming field that had large brush on it. There is a reason its all covered in stone wall. Those old guys didn't build walls in the woods. Also its now makes sense were the old sugar bushes were since we left all the large clumps of maple. Here they are in the low lying soil deficient parts. Cause maple was the best use of that not so great soil.

[Russell Lampron]

I wish this forum had a "like" button like other V Bulletin forums do.

[northwoods_forestry]

All of this clamor over climate change and global warming has a lot more to do with politicians finding a way to make money off of it than it does with what is actually going on. Thats my 2 cents. Dick

This is an oft repeated refrain that is completely off the mark. I challenge you to follow the money. I think you'll very quickly find that it is the many politicians & corporate interests and a very few scientists that deny the validity of human caused climate change that are getting the big bucks.

[Ausable]

Hmmmmmm! I did a fairly good job of avoiding this Topic until now. As an old guy - I remember what it was like. In the late 1940's We were still getting our act together recovering from WWII and the Great Depression and rebuilding America. I was a kid - but - boy do I remember the pollution. Dumps were located along rivers with fires going all the time. Factory Stacks had black smoke coming from them (High Fuel - Low Air). Waste Oil dumped on the ground or poured down drains. Raw - untreated human waste was discharged into rivers and on and on and on. Ok - The Government finally woke up and decided - Hey - this is getting out of hand and they (at first) did things right. Only ----- They always Operate in extremes (zero to 180 - never 90). So - now we find ourselves at the other end of the extreme and just as crazy. We are getting so clean - that we no longer make anything and we are beyond broke (18 trillion in the hole). Yet the silliness continues - China and Germany build coal fired electric generating plants and burn a lot of our coal. We sit on one of the largest coal deposits in the world and we are closing down our coal fired plants one after the other and replacing them with thousands and thousands of wind mills (How stupid can You get). Hey - We are Americans. We are broke and soon will be sitting in the dark and then lets chat about Global Warming aka Climate Change.

[eustis22]

" We are broke and soon will be sitting in the dark and then lets chat about Global Warming aka Climate Change. "

We're broke? Who's broke? We spend $800B/year making guns....we don't sound broke to ME. Maybe when we lose the Antarctica ice shelves someone will notice. Of course, we'll lose 11 feet of sea level and I wonder how much THAT will cost.

[maplestudent]

Up until my generation my fathers side of the family were all dairy farmers. I had many talks with my father about the way that things used to be. He pointed out that everywhere that you find a stone wall was once a pasture. I haven't been in the woods in Andover very many times but do know that here in Loudon there are plenty of stone walls that seem to be in the middle of nowhere, most forming a rectangle or square that once was a field.

I'll add that where you see walls that have small stones covering the walls, that the adjacent area was used for gardening. the small stones would be picked from the garden space in the spring (after the winter's frost pushed them up in the soil) and added to the stone walls.

An interesting read on the subject of how pastures are reclaimed, how forests recover from various events, how certain trees become the dominant species is this book: http://sectionhiker.com/how-to-read-the-forested-landscape/ Although the book tends to focus on the forests of central New England, the basic principles described could apply anywhere.

[Greyfox]

We spend $800B/year making guns

I'm certainly "in" for my share....maybe I can up-it a couple more AR's this year.....and another 1911....maybe another .300 blk SBR.... Excellent plan!