Quote Originally Posted by Revi View Post
I think it may be something that could be done on good land as a row crop, but if it takes over the woods we will have trouble. Maple trees provide far more than just syrup. They are the watershed for a lot of places, provide saw logs, firewood, wildlife and a number of other crops besides the syrup. Turning them into a row crop will devastate the forest and will eventually end up killing the very things we like to sugar for. Maple syrup will end up being just another product that is produced by agribusiness and it will lose it's brand. How are we any different from Mrs. Butterworth's if we are just another product of giant agriculture?
The trend has been for people to move towards foods produced closer to home and I don't think people will stop buying from their local producers. Tubing, vacuum and other systems have mechanized maple syrup production and people still look for local producers. If production does increase and maple trees are planted like Christmas trees that are harvested and replaced in cycles, perhaps we'll have other benefits like better forest preservation instead of having miles of tubing running here and here or lowering the price of maple sugar and syrup to where it can replace the majority of the artificial stuff out there.

Quote Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins View Post
We are not suggesting this be used to replace current sugarbush collection methods.
I know you're not suggesting that, but I think in some places this could happen. I look at areas near me with open farm land slowly becoming developed. Why wouldn't you want to have a nice row of trees planted there to keep the land open and in agriculture? That could lead to producers in those areas expanding in lieu of adding capacity in the woods.