Glenda Pereira: 00:01
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your host, Dr. Glenda Pereira, an assistant professor at the University of Maine and the dairy specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. For this episode, we’re gonna learn all about maple production and the work that our return guest, Jason Lilley, is working on. I know nothing about maple production except for that I like to eat maple syrup, and it tastes really good on ice cream, on pancakes, on so many things.
Glenda Pereira: 00:33
So looking forward to this episode, learning from an expert. Jason Lilley, thanks for being back on the Maine Farmcast.
Jason Lilley: 00:40
Yeah. Happy to be here.
Glenda Pereira: 00:42
So we were talking a little bit about the Maine maple industry. I know actually a few folks who are Maine maple producers or just maple producers, right?
Jason Lilley: 00:53
Yep.
Glenda Pereira: 00:53
Is that the term? And I just need to learn so much more because it’s a big part of production here in the state of Maine. And there’s a big industry, but I’m not familiar with it. So you, as the specialist that supports the Maine maple industry, definitely know more about the sticky details of Maine maple production.
Jason Lilley: 01:16
Yeah, absolutely. So, it’s such an interesting industry. I grew up in Northern Maine, spent a lot of time in the woods, but also have more of a draw towards agricultural systems. And it was just really interesting. Well, actually, one farm that I worked at had large-scale vegetable production, but they also, in the wintertime, would do maple.
Jason Lilley: 01:47
And so that was my first exposure to really what it was to tap a tree and efficiently boil down sap into syrup. And that kind of opened up the door for me to go down this path and get more involved in the industry here. And now, in my role with Extension, I’m supporting folks who have three trees in the backyard and want to learn how to tap the tree, how to keep the tree healthy, how to efficiently boil down syrup, and how to safely finish and can that maple syrup. So that’s one area—working with backyard operations or helping folks start up commercial operations.
Jason Lilley: 02:34
I’m also very involved as the co-director of the Maple Grading School. This is international—it’s on both sides of the border—and we work with producers, industry leaders, and bulk buyers, the packers of maple syrup, to train folks on how to make sure that syrup is meeting the USDA standards, that it is high quality, that it doesn’t have off flavors, and that it won’t go bad. So that is a really fun part of my work.
Jason Lilley: 03:07
And I also do a lot with, and this is a growing part of my focus, working with producers on what is the central component of the industry: the natural resource, the woods, and the sugarbush itself. So that’s been a fun part of the work and something that I’m constantly learning more about and diving into.
Glenda Pereira: 03:32
And how many trees are tapped annually in the state of Maine?
Jason Lilley: 03:40
We have 500 licensed producers. We produce 500,000 gallons of maple syrup a year. In the U.S., we’re the third-largest producer of maple syrup. And we won’t mention Quebec because Quebec produces an insane amount of syrup every year. But it’s really interesting.
Jason Lilley: 04:07
There’s this cross-border collaboration, and the majority of our syrup is produced right along the Quebec border in far northern Maine. That’s just kind of a natural phenomenon. It’s really excellent growing habitat for sugar maples, so you naturally have these ecosystems primarily made up of that tree species. Somerset County is the largest producing county of maple syrup in the U.S. We have these operations that are pushing 200,000 taps per individual operation.
Glenda Pereira: 04:50
Wow.
Jason Lilley: 04:51
So there are huge economies of scale as far as the efficiency of the boiling, but that still means there are people in the woods pushing a drill bit into a tree and tapping a plastic spile into a tree 200,000 times.
Glenda Pereira: 05:05
Yeah. That’s incredible. And their on-season is?
Jason Lilley: 05:13
So in southern Maine, we can get started as early as early February. I think most people usually keep in mind February, but that is totally weather and forecast dependent. And then up in that northern tier, that’s usually probably three weeks later to get started and can go into late April.
Glenda Pereira: 05:40
Wow. Yeah. So those folks are out there in those wintery months. February is always, you know, a snowy month. So those folks are probably going over inches or even feet of snow, tapping trees.
Glenda Pereira: 05:54
Yes, in that area for sure. That’s incredible.
Jason Lilley: 05:57
Yeah. And actually, many producers have intentionally lifted their tubing systems so they don’t get buried by snow. And then they’ll have these tap pullers, which are just metal poles, and they can be four or five feet long. Because where they were walking on the snow and easily reaching and tapping, by the time the snow melts and it’s time to pull the taps, they need these big long poles to reach where the tap was. So, yeah, a lot to think about.
Glenda Pereira: 06:27
Wow. That’s awesome. And then you talked about this sugarbush thing. Tell us more.
Jason Lilley: 06:39
Yes. So, as I mentioned, the central resource and the thing that makes this whole industry possible is the woods and the trees. And of course, that is totally dependent on a healthy and vibrant natural resource. Probably about four years ago, I started to get quite a few calls, especially in the Franklin County region.
Jason Lilley: 07:16
They were experiencing really severe droughts, and I’d go up and see these sugarbushes and the trees were just obviously extremely stressed. We call the sugar maple the Goldilocks of trees. It doesn’t want to be too wet, doesn’t want to be too dry. It really needs pretty specific soil conditions and topography and all those types of things.
Jason Lilley: 07:42
So unfortunately, we can see that these changing weather phenomena and the changing climate can have a pretty severe toll on the trees. From that, talking with my colleagues in Vermont and a colleague here at the School of Forest Resources at UMaine, we decided that maybe we should pull together some resources and educational materials to help maple producers, sugarbush managers, consulting foresters—whoever’s involved in the industry—to better manage this resource. Another thing I’ve experienced is I’ll show up at a sugarhouse and a producer will say, “Come look at this. I just went out and managed my sugarbush.”
Jason Lilley: 08:33
And what they did was cut every single tree except for a sugar maple. And we know that a vibrant ecosystem, especially this long-lived perennial ecosystem, needs diversity. It needs something to break the march of pests that are going to go across, or something that’s more deeply rooted to help hold up its neighboring trees. So again, that was more of the impetus for why we needed more education—so that we can more intentionally manage the sugarbush versus just going out and getting a couple sticks of firewood and cutting everything except the sugar maples.
Glenda Pereira: 09:15
Yeah.
Jason Lilley: 09:16
So we’re really excited. We’re about a year into this project now, and we’re about to launch level one of this microcredential. And I’ll kind of step back and explain what a microcredential is quickly.
Glenda Pereira: 09:35
Yeah, go ahead.
Jason Lilley: 09:35
So this is kind of a new approach to community education, and the University of Maine is really piloting and being a leader in this approach. As opposed to a college-for-credit class where there’s, you know, a sixteen-week requirement or however many hours, this is maybe a step down from that, but it’s still a course that’s recognized by a university as being robust and meeting a certain set of criteria laid out by the university. So what that means is that when a consulting forester or a sugarbush manager or a high school student in a vocational program goes through this course, they will get a certificate. They can put a stamp on their resume or on their business’s website and say, “We’ve gone through a fairly formal training on this topic.” And you, as a potential client or employer, can see that there’s proof that we’ve really dug in and that we’re serious about learning about this topic.
Glenda Pereira: 10:50
Yeah. So that’s specific to sugarbush production.
Jason Lilley: 10:55
This one that we’re developing right now.
Glenda Pereira: 10:57
Yep. So what are some of the topics that you cover in that?
Jason Lilley: 11:00
Yep. So this level one is more kind of the foundational information. We really dive deep into how a sugar maple works—how does the sap run, what’s the purpose of the sap in the tree, and what are the different components of the tree. And then we get into what are the stressors.
Jason Lilley: 11:23
So why is it that drought conditions or saturated soils or heavy winds would stress out a maple tree? We also get into climate data—laying the foundation for how to better understand the state of our climate, how it’s changing, what the projections are, and how to really lean into reliable sources of information. Another aspect of this is that it’s not just going to be made for Maine maple producers. We’re hoping that it’s out there for folks across the entire maple-producing region.
Jason Lilley: 12:04
So we’re going to help folks identify what are the good sources of data and information that are reliable in different regions across the maple-producing area.
Glenda Pereira: 12:16
Yeah, that sounds really resourceful because, like you were mentioning, there are quite a few pockets in the North American continent—not only Quebec, since Quebec producers produce quite a bit of maple syrup as well. So you’ll have those folks accessing this content that you and colleagues have created, and I think it’ll be really resourceful. Even for people like me, like we started off the episode—
Glenda Pereira: 12:44
I’ll be honest, I know very little about maple production other than it’s tasty. But, like you mentioned, there are a lot of folks who are beginner level that come to you. There are folks who have been doing this for quite some time, but there are still some knowledge gaps.
Jason Lilley: 13:02
Right.
Glenda Pereira: 13:03
Like you were mentioning, that one producer who took away all the diversity in that sugarbush probably had a big impact on production the following years. Right?
Jason Lilley: 13:15
Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 13:16
So you’re meeting that gap for a lot of folks, wherever they are. And so this intro level one—I’m sure you’ll have more, like a series?
Jason Lilley: 13:26
So there will be three levels altogether. And like I said, the first level is kind of like, here’s the base information that will help with decision-making. And then level two and level three are much more applied. So essentially, what we’re going to guide participants in doing is identifying, on their own property or a property they might work with, what are the biggest stressors that are putting that property at risk and how do we develop adaptation strategies to alleviate those risks.
Glenda Pereira: 14:09
We’re excited about it. Jason, this has been super informational. Is there anything else we missed about the program that you’re going to be conducting in the next couple of years that you wanted to mention to our listeners?
Jason Lilley: 14:23
Well, I should say that this has been funded by the USDA’s Ag Marketing Service and their Acer Access Program, and we’re very grateful for that funding. We’re going to not only have this course as an outcome, but we’ll be doing woods walks, at least in Maine and Vermont, to get more folks interested and out in the woods during the growing season. And this summer, in September, which is very soon, we’re going to do an invasive species walk in York County.
Jason Lilley: 14:58
So we’ll be out looking at invasive plant species in the sugarbush and talking about the best ways to eradicate or manage those. We’re really trying to look at this holistically—not just having the course, but also creating a few fact sheets and some in-person workshops that will come out of it as well.
Glenda Pereira: 15:18
That’s awesome. So folks can look up our UMaine Extension calendar. It’s going to have the events that Jason was mentioning listed there. You can also always reach out to Jason and email him.
Glenda Pereira: 15:31
But look at the calendar and reach out to your maple network folks because they’ll probably be sharing some of this as well—your invasive species walk and then following events related to this project. So thanks so much, Jason, for being on the Maine Farmcast again. We always learn so much from you.
Jason Lilley: 15:53
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Glenda Pereira: 15:55
If you have comments, suggestions for future topics, or any questions about our episodes, be sure to email us at extension.farmcast@maine.edu.