Cornell Maple Program Intro

Here is the Cornell Maple Program Intro from Stephen Childs:

First I want to thank the mapletrader staff for allowing me to post on this site. It's important to us here at the Cornell Maple Program that maple producers have access to our programs and materials. Thanks also for posting our upcoming workshops, maple schools and other activities on the calendar.

Our next major event in New York is the State Maple Tour, scheduled for July 27-29 in the Western Fingerlakes area of the state. Canandaigua is the host town which is just a little south east of Rochester and an hour west of Syracuse. A complete description of the sites to be visited and registration information is available at cornellmaple.com Just click the tour button on the home page.

Work is progressing rapidly on the new NYS Maple Producers Association fair booth on the Syracuse Fairgrounds. I'll get a chance to see it at the Saturday (June 21) directers meeting. The new booth will greatly expand the space available and oppertunities to boost sales of maple syrup and especially maple value added products.

We have been conducting a number of Maple Confection Workshops around New York, PA and Ohio this spring with Confection I workshops held in Liberty NY, Canton NY, and Burton Ohio with 71 maple producers attending. A Confection II was held in Albion PA with 27 in attendance. In Confection I we cover making maple cream, granulated sugar, molded sugars and crystal coating along with how to measure and manage invert sugars and the factors that influence sugar crystallization. Confection II workshops deal with making maple suckers(even 100% maple suckers) hard candy, maple coated nuts, maple meringues, maple marshmallow, maple straws and sugar packets, flavored maple creams, maple soft drinks, maple slushies and smoothies. Each workshop takes about 6 hours. If your interested in more on how to make, market and price these products check the calendar for future workshops.

In future weeks I will introduce you to other members of the Cornell Maple Program and Maple Team and try to continue to update you on programs and research results. We have some very interesting research results dealing with replacing taps and droplines and the resulting production increases we recorded.

Thank you. Steve Childs, NYS Maple Specialist