The extreme heat of February and March is not to everyone’s taste. The maple syrup harvest began very early this year, and the heat these days threatens to put a damper on this season, which promises to be crucial for the market.
February is barely behind us, but Pierre Cormier, master sugar maker, has already achieved 25% of “good production” in his cabin in the Eastern Townships.
“It’s very good, except that yesterday, in the cabin, I was in a t-shirt! »
Although he says he is “optimistic by nature”, temperatures hovering around 10 degrees above seasonal norms worry him. Too much heat too soon would herald the end of the 2024 sugar season. “Hot nights are catastrophic,” he said. We usually see this in April. At the beginning of March, you never see that. »
His concern about hot weather is found in many sugar shacks in Quebec, according to Tim Rademacher, doctor in forest ecophysiology and researcher at the ACER center, a laboratory specializing in maple science.
“It started early. It started strong. But will it be cold enough in March for this to continue? »
The season usually lasts five to seven weeks and ends when the maples have “accumulated temperature,” explains the scientist.
Every day when the mercury is above five degrees, the tree somehow stores heat. Beyond a certain number of accumulated degrees, the maple begins to bud. From then on, the sap tastes bitter or simply no longer flows. The more intensely hot the days are, the faster this fateful budding date approaches.
“We don’t know the exact threshold for maple yet. But until now, with the temperatures we have had, we have already accumulated a lot of degrees,” continues Mr. Rademacher.
Reserves almost dry
Faced with the climate threat, the industry spokesperson is reassuring. “We don’t expect there to be a shortage of syrup,” assures Joël Vaudeville, of communications for the Producteurs et producerrices acéricoles du Québec (PPAQ).
A disappointing 2024 season would still deal a hard blow to Quebec’s “strategic reserve” of maple syrup, which serves to stabilize prices in the long term. Stocks in this secret warehouse where millions of liters of liquid are stored have reached an extremely low level.
There are only 15 million pounds of maple syrup left. In comparison, strategic stocks stood at 100 million pounds in 2019.
In the personal cellars of Quebec’s maple groves there are still another 50 million pounds hidden. However, if the 2024 season proves too lean, reserves could decline further, which would threaten price stability.
Profits that melt like snow in the sun
The increasingly mild winters also risk reducing producers’ profits, explains Tim Rademacher, because maple trees need cold to make their sugar.
During the summer, the tree stores its energy through photosynthesis in the form of starch, a complex sugar. The sugar maple quietly transforms this starch into sucrose, a simple sugar, to combat winter cold, because this sugar is also a form of antifreeze. It is this sucrose that gives the sap its delicious taste. The less intense the cold is during the winter, the less there is transformation of starch into sucrose and the less sweet the maple sap comes out in the spring.
Finally, the less sugared the maple sap, the more you have to pay to boil it and turn it into syrup.
Added to these risks of harmful heat are new pest insects and violent winds which increasingly threaten this flagship industry in Quebec. All these uncertainties for the future do not discourage Quebec producers, like Pierre Cormier, who intends to pass on his business to his children. “We have a lot more techniques and knowledge than at the time” to compensate for these factors, he says.
In fact, more maple producers than ever are producing their own syrup.
Some 8,000 companies tapped maple trees this year, an increase of 739 compared to last year. This increase authorized by the PPAQ reversed the decline in the number of agricultural production in Quebec for the first time in nearly 100 years.
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.