Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[DrTimPerkins]

Hickory syrup is made by boiling the bark, straining it out and then adding sugar until you get to syrup.

Never done it, but I believe there are two methods of making hickory syrup. One is by tapping and boiling the sap collected. The second is by boiling hickory bark (making a hickory tea like solution) and adding sugar. The latter is much more common.

[TapTapTap]

Boiling the bark with sugar is how I've always heard it's made. A quick googling seems to confirm. It's not so much a natural sweetener as a flavored simple syrup.

Perhaps a maple-hickory syrup made by boiling the bark in maple sweet until it turns to syrup density.

[Pdiamond]

Boiling the bark and adding sugar is how I have always done it. Nice flavor.

[blissville maples]

Bark syrups- wow interesting, never ceases to amaze me.

[blissville maples]

Bark syrups- wow interesting, never ceases to amaze me. To me it's not really syrup, more a sweetened thick tea as dr Tim suggest. When I talk syrup I mean the real sh*t!!

My sarcastic side is going wild right about now!
How about some dirty ole dog syrup, just wash your dog and add sugar!! I'm wondering what gravel road syrup would be like, perhaps some maple notes in there from a spilled load!! Haha no need for response, I had to....

[sapmaple]

I agree....trees are "smarter" (I should say "better adapted") than we give them credit for. In the 40 yrs I've been studying trees, I've only seen frost damage on maples twice -- one of those was 2012, the other, I think was 1983 or 1984. There is a really huge disincentive for trees to bud early....cold temperatures just a few degrees below freezing will kill new leaves, and it takes a LOT of energy to make new leaves. It's analogous to like building a new engine, tossing it out before you ever start it and building a new one without using any parts from the first one...would be very costly for the trees to do that. We still have some really cold days to come.

Tim so we have alot of green down here in Cornwall it was 26 degrees last night been below freezing for over 24hrs. How do you think the trees are faring? Is this like 2012?

[DrTimPerkins]

Tim so we have alot of green down here in Cornwall it was 26 degrees last night been below freezing for over 24hrs. How do you think the trees are faring? Is this like 2012?

Buds, swelling buds, and recently emerged leaves are able to take a bit of cold (below freezing) weather. The temperature threshold for injury varies a lot with the stage of bud development and emergence. Hard to say how things will turn out. Time will tell.

[jrgagne99]

Was there a lot of die-back in 2012? I remember that season, but not the after-effects of the subsequent cool down.

[DrTimPerkins]

Was there a lot of die-back in 2012? I remember that season, but not the after-effects of the subsequent cool down.

Not a lot. Some places got some frost damage, most didn't get any.

[PCFarms]

The flowers of the Red Maples in our area all died off. the sugars seem to be fine.