Dire situation for Vermont maple syrup producers as winters get warmer

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Warm Winters Upset Rhythms of Maple Sugar
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: March 3, 2007


(Jerry Swope for The New York Times)
Vermont’s maple sugaring industry goes back centuries. Samples of different grades of maple syrup rest on shelves at Burr Morse’s farm in Montpelier. Tree sap is boiled down to make the syrup.

....Warmer-than-usual winters are throwing things out of kilter, causing confusion among maple syrup producers, called sugar makers, and stoking fears for the survival of New England’s maple forests.

“We can’t rely on tradition like we used to,” said (Burr) Morse, 58, who once routinely began the sugaring season by inserting taps into trees around Town Meeting Day, the first Tuesday in March, and collecting sap to boil into syrup up until about six weeks later. The maple’s biological clock is set by the timing of cold weather.

For at least 10 years some farmers have been starting sooner. But last year Mr. Morse tapped his trees in February and still missed out on so much sap that instead of producing his usual 1,000 gallons of syrup, he made only 700.

“You might be tempted to say, well that’s a bunch of baloney — global warming,” said Mr. Morse, drilling his first tap holes this season in mid-February, as snow hugged the maples and Vermont braced for a record snowfall. “But the way I feel, we get too much warm. How many winters are we going to go with Decembers turning into short-sleeve weather, before the maple trees say, ‘I don’t like it here any more?’”...

“It appears to be a rather dire situation for the maple industry in the Northeast if conditions continue to go toward the predictions that have been made for global warming,” said Tim Perkins, director of the Proctor Maple Research Center at the University of Vermont.

Dr. Perkins studied the records of maple syrup production over the last 40 years and found a fairly steady progression of the maple sugaring season moving earlier and earlier, and also getting shorter....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/us/03maple.html?hp

[ngant17]

1. also acid rain from heavy industry in NE

is probably affecting output of syrup from maples. Acid rain has been a suspect wrt maple trees dying in Canada long before global warming became a buzz word.

[Shallah Kali]

3. 6/5/2006 | Acid Rain Causing Decline In Sugar Maples

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060605081212.htm

Acid rain, the environmental consequence of burning fossil fuels, running factories and driving cars, has altered soils and reduced the number of sugar maple trees growing in the Northeast, according to a new study led by Cornell University researchers.

Tim Fahey and Stephanie Juice in the Cornell-owned Arnot Teaching and Research Forest near Ithaca, N.Y. (Photo Credit: Ted Feldpausch)

The sugar maple is the most economically valuable tree species in the eastern United States because of its high-priced lumber, syrup and tourist-attracting fall colors.

{snip}

Though pollution-control legislation has helped reduce sulphuric acid by one-third since its high point in the 1960s, nitric acid from automobiles has not significantly declined.

it isn't just our own heavy industry that is causing acid rain in New England. We also get pollution from the mid-west all the way up here to help make the situation worse.

[Shallah Kali]

4. 7/18/2002 | Damage From Acid Rain Pollution Is Far Worse Than Previously Believed

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/07/020718075630.htm

Up to now, acid rain has been associated with the decline of forests in certain specific locations. DeHayes and colleagues, UVM senior researcher Gary Hawley and USDA Forest Service scientist and UVM adjunct faculty Paul Schaberg previously documented the mechanism through which acid rain depletes calcium and weakens high elevation red spruce trees, making them more vulnerable to winter freezing injury.

Their new work shows that this mechanism is also applicable to other tree species, including balsam fir, white pine, and eastern hemlock. Because calcium is a critical ingredient in the plant's stress response system, acid rain's depletion of cellular calcium may suppress the capacity of trees to survive environmental stresses.

This connection between calcium deficiency and environmental stress exposure are common components in the declines of several tree species, including red spruce, sugar maple, and flowering dogwood. Their "immune response" hypothesis provides an overarching explanation of how acid rain ultimately threatens forests. The findings are especially relevant now because a growing assortment of human influences -- climate change, pollutants, and new pests and diseases, are burdening our forests.

"If extensive, the decline of individual species would radiate through plant communities," says DeHayes. "It would alter the competition and survival of populations, perhaps even species, including animals at higher levels of the forest food chains." DeHayes points out those calcium deficiencies in plants are passed on to herbivores, altering their nutrition. For instance, birds eating calcium- deficient plant material might have less calcium for egg production. Insects could experience weaker exoskeletons. Mammals could have weaker bones or change in the quantity or quality of milk production. The problems continue through the ecosystem and into economic system.

[orleans]

2. this freaks me out: the hardiness zone map from 1990 and 2006

http://www.arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm

click on the play, reset, and differences