400% more sap using vacuum harms trees and makes poor quality syrup?

[Tmeeeh]

This article in the Concord Monitor written by our neighbor seems to have been written out of concern for the maple industry but the author should have checked her facts before discrediting the efforts of other sugar makers. She references our maple operation because we use wind, solar and firewood to make our syrup. In my opinion there a few grains of fact scattered through the piece but those facts are mixed with incorrect statements that give a bad impression of the maple industry. It may be true that new technology allows maple producers to make more very late season syrup that is not table grade and should not be found for sale in retail containers. If she is proud of her method of production she should promote her methods and not cut down others in the industry with misleading statements.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/Sustainability-and-the-NH-maple-syrup-industry-8393460

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

That's just terrible.

[jmayerl]

Unfortunately lots of misinformation any lies in that article.......but that's all I expect from any news now a days

[BAP]

Tmeeh, you should write a letter in rebuttal to her claims and set the record straight. If you don't want to, contact the NH Maple Association and maybe someone there can do it.

[madmapler]

I would like to think it was genuine concern for the industry but it seems impossible to me that her information could have come from any sort of reliable source. I suspect other, more selfish motives for sure.

[bowtie]

There are misconceptions in the article but there are also some valid concerns, ignoring them would be erroneous on the maple industry part. Perception can become reality in many uniformed eyes. First off the dark syrup is completely false, it is quite the opposite. However the debate on vacuum has always made me think, there is no way you can draw more sap than natural gravity and not have drawbacks to the tree, but there in lies difference between non producers and consumers. Producers are using the tree as a crop no different than corn, alfalfa,beans etc. crop farmers use pesticides,herbicides and fertilizers to produce a "better" crop and to amend the soil. Non producers seem to view trees as some sort of "sacred cow" , let me say that I view planting trees one of my favorite and most rewarding pastimes, however I realize they are a renewable resource, they seem to think that the lumber they buy fell from the sky and not from a felled tree.
Back to vacuum, I may someday soon go to a vac system, but there is little doubt that a tree that utilizes more of it resources will be healthier than one that doesn't, but that goes for a tree that is tapped with buckets also, I don't think we need to apologize for the fact that ,we no pun intended, are "tapping" a resource for our own gain, this should not vilify us. If we do it in a responsible sustainable manner, no matter if that it is a high vac system or traditional bucket system, it matters little, not to mention the trees are almost all on private property, so who is someone else to say what we do with them so long as it is within the legal confines of the law.
As for the difference in syrup today vs yesteryear, no one can argue that it has evolved, for some better for others worse. However that is the one thing that maple has over some other food industries, it is not homogenized, every batch,producer,area and time it was produced can lead to a different flavor. Some like dark smokey flavor others favor a lighter tasting syrup, so be it.i do think we tend to,as producers put way to much emphasis on making light syrup,it does not make one better or worse than someone bottling darker syrup just different.my personal opinion on it, is that it is away for larger, more "advanced" producers to differentiate themselves for others, whatever that is their choice but I think it is frankly stupid for bulk buyers to pay more for it than darker syrup but it is also their choice.100 years ago I would guess that the majority of maple syrup made was darker and had a more robust flavor than what is produced today, just by nature of the new, may I say better technology available .better or worse not for me to judge ,just different.
I realize this is an off the hip rant, not nearly organized, or grammatical correct enough, but so long as all follow food safe guidelines, does it matter if you vac it, ro it,batch boil it, run it through a filter press, or cone filter, it is a natural,safe sustainable and delicious resource that can and should be enjoyed by any and all.

[psparr]

Wait till she gets wind of the newest technique of lopping of the tops of saplings and sucking them dry.
Will probably come up with a new group. P.E.T.T
I'll let you figure that one out. It's a shame that the article was written with the mindset it was. The irony of it was the picture of the rusty old spile. I guess that's an acceptable practice?

[madmapler]

However the debate on vacuum has always made me think, there is no way you can draw more sap than natural gravity and not have drawbacks to the tree,. The misinformation lies in 400% more sap coming from vacuum. It's just not true on the average. Vacuum provides a consistent, lower pressure environment which occurs naturally when the sap flows well into a bucket. The percentage of sap left for the tree is estimated to be between 90 and 99%. Conditions that occur in nature can affect a trees available carbohydrates far more than the amount extracted by vacuum. It's true that the extracted amount doesn't improve the trees surviveability but vacuum has been around long enough and studied enough to show little, if any, negative effects to their health. It sure is more healthy than cutting them down, chopping them up and burning them.:)

[Russell Lampron]

I just read the article and have to wonder where she came up with that 400% number. I must be doing something wrong because I don't get anywhere near that much additional sap. I have been using vacuum in my woods for 12 years and see more damage done by sap suckers and wind than I do by responsible tapping and using vacuum.

[JoeJ]

I would definitely agree that the author has filled the article with a lot of misinformation. She also forgot to put a clean spout and a stainless steel bucket in her picture. If average bucket production is 10 gallons of sap a season, a 400 % increase in sap removal by vacuum would produce 50 gallons of sap. Not many producers with vacuum produce 50 gallons of sap per tap. A blanket 400% increase in sap removal by all vacuum users is just plain sensationalism and an OUTRIGHT lie. I use a vacuum system and an RO. I think that I produce delicious tasting maple syrup. If I did not, I don't think that customers from 13 years ago would still be buying from me his year. She obviously does not know what is talking about

[GeneralStark]

This article in the Concord Monitor written by our neighbor seems to have been written out of concern for the maple industry but the author should have checked her facts before discrediting the efforts of other sugar makers. She references our maple operation because we use wind, solar and firewood to make our syrup. In my opinion there a few grains of fact scattered through the piece but those facts are mixed with incorrect statements that give a bad impression of the maple industry. It may be true that new technology allows maple producers to make more very late season syrup that is not table grade and should not be found for sale in retail containers. If she is proud of her method of production she should promote her methods and not cut down others in the industry with misleading statements.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/Sustainability-and-the-NH-maple-syrup-industry-8393460

Tim - The piece you posted is not the original article you reference, correct? It looks like this is an opinion piece written in reference to the original?

Either way, what you posted is certainly nowhere near factually correct, and she provides no sources (besides the nampm in relation to tapping guidelines) to substantiate her claims.

It's too bad that people have such a hard time distinguishing between journalism and opinion...

[Sugar Bear]

Wait till she gets wind of the newest technique of lopping of the tops of saplings and sucking them dry.
Will probably come up with a new group. P.E.T.T


I'm certain we can all agree that this method is guaranteed not to cause any harm to the tree.

Ha Ha Ha!

Even so it should not matter. They are farm raised trees and that makes it ethical. Just like the farm raised animals we eat.

I think its important that the impact of vacuum lines be more carefully evaluated then it is.

Here is the bottom line ...

"Anybody who argues in favor to either side of the impact of vacuum is doing so to support their own cause"

On the other hand my instinct tells me that any tapping of a tree at all is harmful to the tree.

I still tap my trees anyway! No vacuum lines though.

If I thought I could make enough money I would attach vacuum cleaners to every single one of them. Ethical or not!

We rape the land ... its in our nature!

P.S. Is it ethical to shoot the birds that are tapping the heck out of some of my GORGEOUS maples?

I am thinking about it.

Cheers

[NH Maplemaker]

I sure hope Dr Tim reads this article ! Would luv to get his take on it!

[southfork]

My guess is tapping trees and harvesting sap utilizing any method has saved many a forest from becoming pulp or veneer, it is all relative.

[Starks sugarbush]

Been tapping some trees 60 years and they haven't fallen over yet!

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[DaveB]

I do hope that the NH association or someone responds to this person. She obviously doesn't know what vacuum does and needs some serious education. It's pieces like this that give producers a bad name and what makes it worse is that she is also a producer!

[Jmsmithy]

I find it hard to believe this was written by a sugar maker with any real knowledge of current production practices. Her assertions aren't even close to factually correct. In fact, they are so off base the figures are delusional. How about the Monitor fact checking this and see who's correct? Contact ANY state sugarmakers association, NY, NH, VT etc and give them these "facts" and they very well may laugh out loud. What a shame this nonsense gets disseminated as "fact".

[Russell Lampron]

Which one of us is doing more harm to the trees. Me with my 5/16 taps or her with her big old 7/16 taps. My next door neighbor had some big old sugars cut down last fall and gave me the wood. These trees were huge and had been tapped since they were about 12" in diameter. You could clearly see the staining from the taps and the stains from the 7/16 taps that were likely 100 years old were much larger than the stains from the 5/16 taps that I had used when I hung buckets on them.

As for the amount of sap from vacuum compared to buckets I generally only get between 50% and 100% more depending on the season.

As for the flavor of the syrup vacuum and RO make no difference if you concentrate to 18% or less. I have set up a taste test here and most people thought that the RO syrup tasted better. Also there have been many awards won for best tasting syrup with syrup made by producers using RO machines.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

More Fake News.

[Russell Lampron]

More Fake News.

Afraid not! This woman lives 1 town over from me and I think she truly believes what she is saying is true. The Concord Monitor should have checked to see if her facts were true before they printed the story.

[southfork]

The media generally does not get details correct, and the syrup maker has a learning curve. It will be ok.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

I find it hard to believe this was written by a sugar maker with any real knowledge of current production practices. Her assertions aren't even close to factually correct. In fact, they are so off base the figures are delusional. How about the Monitor fact checking this and see who's correct? Contact ANY state sugarmakers association, NY, NH, VT etc and give them these "facts" and they very well may laugh out loud. What a shame this nonsense gets disseminated as "fact".

I noticed the use of the word "Belief/believe" about 5 times in the article. People see what they believe and think it's true even if it is not.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

fake
adjective US ​ /feɪk/
fake adjective (NOT REAL)

​
intended to look like something else, esp. in order to deceive:

[GeneralStark]

It's not "news", it's an opinion piece....

[n8hutch]

Propaganda for sure, clearly trying to paint a better picture of their"her" practices vs the modern way of doing things.

Probably still using a lead solder evaporator and Galvanized too.

[Tmeeeh]

I have drafted a reply that could be published in response and sent it to the NH maple producers directors. I hope they choose to use some of what I wrote. I think it's important to present a positive image of maple production. We want our customers and the general public to have positive view of our products and methods. I don't think it's helpful for maple producers to be viewed as a group that fights among ourselves and discredits each other and their syrup. I also feel that it's important to publicly correct some of the misinformation in the article. Part of what makes this tricky is that her family runs a nice operation here, her father in law is in the maple hall of fame and published the Maple Digest for many many years. They have contributed a great deal to the maple world. Now this...

[cbmapleguy]

None of the replies mentioned the lower sugar content... I would be interested in hearing peoples opinions. Do you get an average lower sugar content when using a vacuum? We don't use a vacuum system. Yet.

[Russell Lampron]

None of the replies mentioned the lower sugar content... I would be interested in hearing peoples opinions. Do you get an average lower sugar content when using a vacuum? We don't use a vacuum system. Yet.

When we have the normal freeze thaw cycles the sugar isn't affected. After 3 or 4 days without a freeze it is lower. I don't check my sap sugar content before I start the RO so I can't tell you how much lower it is. The other night I made 9 gallons of syrup from a sap quantity that would normally produce 12 gallons plus so I know that the sap sugar content was lower to start with. That sap was gathered on the 4th day without a freeze. The syrup quantity was at my usual average until then.

[berkshires]

People keep talking about this article as journalism, and saying the paper should have fact checked it. Um, I hope the people who subscribe to the paper have better sense than y'all. It's an opinion piece. That means the author can say whatever nonsense she believes. Haven't you all read letters to the editor before? Most people are yahoos with all kinds of crazy ideas.

They probably published the article precisely because it's so inflamatory - to drum up conversation and hits to the site.

GO

[madmapler]

People keep talking about this article as journalism, and saying the paper should have fact checked it. Um, I hope the people who subscribe to the paper have better sense than y'all. It's an opinion piece.

Just goes to show that many people do tend to give credibility to everything that's in print. Hence the power of the (corrupt) press. That being said, those to whom you refer are also entitled to their opinion and are not entirely wrong in their grievance. Perhaps what you said was true about their possible motive for publishing this article. They (the paper)
are still responsible for allowing the public to be misinformed through their forum and cannot be oblivious to the damage this article has caused for the sake of selling newspapers. Some may say that "it's just the way things are these days" and I say "you're right" but that doesn't make it right..... IMO

[DrTimPerkins]

Do you get an average lower sugar content when using a vacuum?

It is not that simple a question and thus requires some clarification. When sap is running with freezes occurring every few days, the sap from vacuum and from gravity will be about the same composition (sugar and mineral content will be the same). However, after a few days the sap from gravity trees will slow down greatly or stop, whereas the trees on vacuum will keep producing sap. Until you get another freeze, the sap sugar content in the vacuum trees will slowly diminish. BUT, it is important to keep in mind you are getting ZERO sugar from the trees on gravity that have stopped running.

[DrTimPerkins]

People keep talking about this article as journalism, and saying the paper should have fact checked it. Um, I hope the people who subscribe to the paper have better sense than y'all. It's an opinion piece. That means the author can say whatever nonsense she believes.

I think this is exactly the case. Since it is was published as her opinion, the paper isn't going to check the facts. Therefore she can say whatever she wants, whether it is wrong or right. There certainly are statements in that piece that are technically quite wrong.

[DrTimPerkins]

Wait till she gets wind of the newest technique of lopping of the tops of saplings and sucking them dry.
Will probably come up with a new group. P.E.T.T

Ah yes....we certainly heard from a certain percentage of people about our advocating for killing "baby trees." The reality is that nature does it much more intensively than we do.

[DrTimPerkins]

".... there is no way you can draw more sap than natural gravity and not have drawbacks to the tree, ...."

"....but there is little doubt that a tree that utilizes more of it resources will be healthier than one that doesn't, but that goes for a tree that is tapped with buckets also,.."

Without writing a treatise on the subject (that'll come later), there are still questions (which is good for us scientists), and this is one of them. We have to consider the multiple ways that tapping affects trees. The two biggest are wounding and wound response (compartmentalization) and carbohydrate (sugar) extraction. In general, for trees that are of tappable size (min 9-10" diameter) with good growth and good crown exposure, we are probably slowing their growth down slightly, but otherwise not having any real long-term impact on them (assuming droplines of adequate length, tapholes not too deep, not too many tapholes). Trees generally produce an excess amount of sugar and store it in the wood of the stem and branches as a "reserve." They draw upon these reserves when needed, but most is just stored until the tree and is lost when the tree dies.

Where we run into problems is small <9" dbh that are intermediate or suppressed. Those types of trees are living "on the edge" in terms of carbohydrate acquisition due to low solar exposure. If we tap those, we are taking away a higher percentage of their stored reserves and impacting their growth. Better to thin them out and let the crowns of the residual stems grow faster and produce more sugar.

To really get at this question, we are currently in the middle of a 10 yr study to look at the health and growth of maple trees that are untapped versus that where we tap with gravity collection versus those that are tapped with high vacuum. We are in the 4th year of sap collection in 2017, and hope to have mid-study results at the end of the 2018 season.

[berkshires]

And yes, I agree with all those here saying someone should write a well reasoned and fact-based reply. Sorry, I'm not volunteering, as I'm just a hobbyist who doesn't use vacuum.

[ennismaple]

86.37% of all statistics are made up. Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

My children are tapping the same trees my great grandfather used to tap and some of those have been on vacuum for 35 years. Would they be healthier if we didn't tap them? Maybe - but we also manage the woodlot to keep them healthier. If we weren't tapping them they would have been cut down for firewood decades ago!

[DrTimPerkins]

86.37% of all statistics are made up. Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Nice :lol:

Yes, I tend to agree that there isn't a lot of evidence showing that tapping/sap collection, when practiced properly (tree size, number of taps, etc), is unsustainable. In many organisms it has been shown that too much stress is bad, but no stress is also bad....but a moderate amount is OK. I guess Goldilocks got it right....must be she was a scientist. ;)