‘It’s the future of sugar’: new technology feeds Vermont maple syrup boom amid climate crisis | Climate crisis

On a warm May Monday, more than three dozen high school students took to the forest behind a former dairy barn at Vermont State University in Randolph.

In teams of four, they ran blue plastic tubing from tree to tree, racing to connect the tubes across three trees in 30 minutes. One student leaned back and pulled it taut with his body weight while another secured tube to tree. Quickly, they dashed to the next in what appears to be a twisted tug-of-war.

Another group panicked as water gushed from a bucket hanging from the side of a tree. If the students had run the lines correctly, sap (or in this case, water) should have flowed through the channel and streamed out the other end. But something wasn’t working for this second group; the water didn’t move.

“Try to figure out where there’s blockage!” Lynn Wolfe shouted from a few feet away. A farmer and an educator, Wolfe designed this event, the fifth-annual maple career day through the University of Vermont and the local environmental educator Shelburne Farms.

These students were testing their knowledge of all things maple, from syrup grading to this mock-tapping activity. They came to Randolph from technical high schools and career development programs across the state. The event was part of a larger two-day Future Farmers of America convention, where they practiced a range of agricultural skills in competitions. The afternoon dedicated to maple tapping and syrup production is the only one of its kind in the country.

Cultivating the next generation of workers is important for Vermont’s expanding industry. Cody Armstrong, a sugarmaker, volunteered at the event to connect with students he could hire as seasonal workers, during the busy late winter/early spring sugaring period. Armstrong runs CDA Maple in Randolph, an operation that makes maple syrup. It’s grown from a small family hobby to a commercial enterprise. He and his uncle can’t keep up with it all on their own anymore.

The growth in Armstrong’s business is the type of change the maple industry across Vermont is experiencing. It’s a surprising boom when many worry that the climate crisis will spell doom, with earlier and erratic tapping seasons. Some have even predicted “Maple-pocalypse”.

But Vermont data suggests quite the opposite. Production has steadily increased since the 1990s. The state hit a record high in 2022, producing 2.55m gallons of syrup. Even though it’s too early for this year’s totals, Vermont tappers reported a strong season.

Driving this surprising growth is new technology and shifting tapping timelines. Those blue vacuum tubes the students used to suck sap out of the trees and channel it directly to the sugar shack have been key in increasing yields, as have the vacuum pumps often attached to the end of such tubing. Today’s tappers don’t have to haul sloshing buckets of sap through the snowy forest every few days, as previous sugarmakers did. Even small teams have the capacity to pull gallons more from the trees.

Maple trees depend on temperatures cycling above and below freezing for sap to run – and the window during which that can happen is widening. Traditionally, Vermonters tap their trees around “Town Meeting” day, an annual March election holiday. But now, producers put taps out as early as December. Modern taps and vacuum tubing make it so that sugarmakers can keep taps for months longer, without bacteria or fungi clogging the taps.

“The technology wasn’t specifically generated to counter the impacts of climate change,” explained Eric Sorkin, the owner and producer at Runamok Maple. “The technology was developed to increase yields and has also helped mitigate the impacts of climate change. So we’re doing a better job getting more out of the tree, which is offsetting some of the negative impacts of climate change, which would be pushing the other direction.”

Threats to tree health and syrup production do loom. Earlier springs concern sugarmakers because once trees bud, the sugar that would have stayed in syrup instead goes toward fueling the new leaves, making the syrup sour. Once those buds appear, sugaring season is essentially over.

Foresters must think on the scale of a tree’s lifetime, in terms of many decades, not years. While the industry is secure for now, future high temperatures, high winds and droughts – all of which are becoming increasingly common in Vermont – worry some producers. Increases in pests and diseases could add further stress to the trees. As Vermont warms and hardier species can spread and dominate forests, the cold-adapted sugar maples may lose out in competition for sunlight, nutrients and growing space.

But improving forest health today can insulate the trees from the worst of these future conditions, says Mark Isselhardt, the University of Vermont extension maple specialist and another key organizer of the student event. He doesn’t think a maple tree mass extinction is around the corner.

“I’m not at all sure how long the industry will be robust,” he said. “But the trees are not going to disappear across the landscape in the next 100 years.”

Diversifying forests – especially historically uniform sugarbushes, the stands of maple trees used for tapping – can help bolster sugar maples against these long-term threats, Isselhardt added.

Such diversity can come in many forms for maple forests. Age diversity, which lets the next generation of young trees establish themselves alongside the older trees, strengthens forests against drought and storms; old trees are more resilient to drought while saplings are resilient in heavy wind. Species diversity is also important: red maples can survive across a wider range of conditions than sugar maple can, while still producing tappable sap. Leaving more organic matter on the ground also helps, since dead leaves and twigs enhance soil nutrition and make for healthier maple growth.

Maintaining a healthy and diverse sugarbush might not only help maple weather a changing climate, but it can also contribute to broader environmental health; the forests store carbon and provide a rich habitat for wildlife, especially migrating birds.

“From an ecological standpoint, from a carbon, climate, biodiversity – from an everything standpoint, [maple is] better,” said Steve Hagenbuch, a conservation biologist and the creator of Audubon’s Bird Friendly Maple certification. “It’s the future of sugar.”

The future also depends on a robust sugaring workforce and evolving old traditions. At the maple career day, the team with the bucket troubleshot why their tubing wasn’t working, mumbling and cursing under their breath. Pulling out and reattaching the tubes, its members realized that one of the first connectors they used blocked the sap flow rather than easing its way.

“We used the wrong straights!” Teagan Desrochers, now a graduate of Lyndon Institute, explained, eager to share how this connector worked. “I have never seen one of those before today.”

Meanwhile, Noah Gagne, who serves as a Vermont youth “maple ambassador”, breezed through the testing stations. He comes from a family of maple tappers and works in the sugar shack his grandfather built. Their operation is steeped in that legacy while clear-eyed on the future.

Of his grandfather, Gagne said: “Oh, he loves it all. He likes learning all the new technology, things about process.” He brought a similar openness to the competition, helping other students fill out their scantrons as they took tests to demonstrate their maple knowledge. “You talk to people here, and you learn new stuff. There’s always something new to learn.” In the fall, Noah will go to Suny Cobleskill, but he aims to return to the sugarbush and manage it one day.