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MAINE - Think this crazy January weather has you bewildered? Try being a maple tree. "It has me worried," Tim Littlefield of Lucerne Maple Products said Friday. "My trees are confused." Littlefield annually puts in 3,500 taps for his maple syrup business and recently tapped two trees as barometers. "The trees are dribbling, but they aren't running," he said. Although he said that behavior is normal, this long stretch of warmth followed by freezing has him concerned. "This open weather is driving the frost down deep into the roots," he said, which could mean a late, short maple season this year. "Last year, the weather was so bad that we only got about one-third of our crop," he said. "I sure hope that is not the case this year." Maine's syrup producers usually have all their taps in by the first of March, he said, and an average 40-year-old tree will yield about 40 quarts of sap per season. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. Bob Moore of Bob's Sugarhouse in Dover-Foxcroft said he is optimistic that this weather will not have any greater effect on the sugar maples than a normal January thaw. "If we get back to a normal winter soon, we'll be OK," he said. "I'm not too concerned yet." Moore said his biggest problem right now is the large number of downed trees on his sap lines. Moore puts in 5,000 taps a year which are connected by a plastic vacuum-tubing system. "I went out Tuesday and in one spot I had eight blow-downs," Moore said. "I took care of five and then we had that storm Wednesday. I went back out Thursday and I still had eight blow-downs." Moore said he also expects a good but short season. Maine Maple Sunday, a day of tours and events at the state's sugar houses, is set for March 26. |