It’s been a mild winter, with warm weather and little snowfall, which could have effects on local crops in the spring season.
Ron Hubbs, of Hubb’s Sugar Bush, says that they won’t know the full effect of the mild weather on the maple sap harvest until the season ends.
“It certainly made an early start to the season. Most producers in Prince Edward County here and even north up into the Madoc area, we’re tapping mid-January, which is very unusual,” said Hubbs. “Normally we’d be thinking about starting about now or in the next week or two.”
Even with the early start, the trees are producing well so far, with Hubbs saying that last week yielded good results.
“It’s been cool enough that the trees have been dormant. But it’s just been unusually mild. The trees need around 2000 hours of dormancy. So yeah, you do need some cold weather for sure,” said Hubbs.
Maple trees need cold weather in the winter to hibernate, which is an important part of the process which creates the maple sap which later becomes syrup.
