Season Summaries

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Quebec crop second biggest on record in 2025

Peter Gregg | June 17, 2025

LONGUEUIL, Que.—The Quebec maple crop came in at 225 million pounds this spring, down only slightly from last year's record breaker of 234 million ppunds, the Quebec maple federation announced.

The federation determined a total harvest of 224.9 million pounds of maple syrup from 55.5 million taps, for an average yield of 4.04 pounds per tap.

That puts the globabl crop as the second biggest on record, after it was announced yesterday that the U.S. crop was also its second biggest ever.

Meanwhile, the Quebec federation announced it will allocate another 7 million new taps this year to respond to what it said were the ever-rising demand for maple products. This expansion will increase Quebec's average annual production by about 25 million pounds of maple syrup.

"...demand for maple syrup and our other products continues to grow both at home and abroad, and the Strategic Reserve is still below capacity," said QMSP President Luc Goulet.

The new taps will go to new start-ups and producers wishing to expand their operations, the federation said.

They must go into produciton within the next three production years. [ MORE ]

U.S. maple crop comes in strong at 5.7 million gallons

Peter Gregg | June 16, 2025

RUPERT, Vt.—The 2025 U.S. maple syrup crop was down only slightly from last year, with producers making 5.7 million gallons, compared with 5.8 million last year, according to the USDA statistics service.

Vermont led the way this season with a total of 3.06 million gallons produced, down from 3.1 million gallons last year.

Runner-up states were New York with 829,000 gallons, Wisconsin at 556,000 and Maine with 549,000 gallons, according to USDA.

This would be the first time that Wisconsin placed in the top three in syrup production.

In yields per tap, Wisconsin was number one with 0.463 gallons produced per tap, followed by Vermont at 0.367 gallons per tap average and Maine at 0.312, the USDA reported. [ MORE ]

U.S. maple syrup crop predicted about average

Peter Gregg | May 27, 2025

SWANTON, Vt.—The U.S. syrup crop should come in about average or slightly below, based on interviews with producers and packers.

While some states had bad years, like Ohio and Indiana, others had barn busters, like Maine, especially on the Golden Road.

“We’re up 15 percent over last year,” said 11,000-tap producer Rodney Hall of East Dixfield, Vt. who attended the dealer open house weekend in Franklin County, Vt. at the end of April.

Hall was one of many producers who experienced cooperative sugaring weather this season.

Henry Lambright of Brown City, Mich. said he hit almost a half gallon of syrup per tap.

“We made 594 gallons on 1,200 taps,” he told The Maple News. [ MORE ]

Michigan producers wiped out by ice storm

Peter Gregg | April 10, 2025

GAYLORD, Mich.—Michigan sugarmakers are rallying around fellow producers who were hit two weeks ago with a generational ice storm, trying to help them salvage a maple season.

“We have been very blessed,” said Jen Richards, who estimates that she and her husband Troy lost nearly their entire sugarwoods in the storm, the 2 inches of ice snapping all the crowns to the ground, leaving only the stems.

They have a 17,000 tap operation near the Mackinac Bridge that connects the Upper and Lower peninsulas of the state.

Over the past week, Richards said upwards of 100 people—other sugarmakers from Michigan, a large group from the Christian Disaster Fund and neighbors—cleared more than 172 miles of sap lines.

Believe it or not, the Richards are are still hoping to make more syrup this season.

The trees still have sap in the trunks, even through the crowns are gone.

“We will see what we can eke out,” she told The Maple News. [ MORE ]

Season Update #6: Crop coming in about average or better

Peter Gregg | April 4, 2025

MERRILL, Wisc.—Sugarmakers in the U.S. are closing out their seasons in most locations, and crop sizes are coming in about average or better.

"It's looking pretty decent," said Joel Oelke, a sugarmaker in Merrill, Wisc. and a rep for Leader H2O. "If the weather holds out we should be at a full crop in about a week."

Bulk prices at some locations in the Northeast have already risen slightly, according to some sugarmakers who have recently sold syrup.

Official prices from the big packers have not been officially announced yet.

In the Northeast, sugarmakers were enjoying mostly decent crops.

Don Russell in Rome, Pa. said his crop size came in a little lower than hoped, but still about average, and the syrup grades ran toward dark.

"We had darker color than normal," he told The Maple News this week.
[ MORE ]

Season Update #5: Big weekend in the Northeast

Peter Gregg | March 17, 2025

HILLSBOROUGH, N.H.—Sugarmakers in the Northeast just had the biggest four day run in many years, but now the heat wave begins.

"It's been ripping," said sugarmaker Charlie Hunt, Jr. of Hunt's Family Maple in Hillsboro, N.H. "I haven't seen it this way in a long time."

The Hunt operation has boiled seven times so far this season, after only starting up two weeks ago.

Sugar content in the sap has been good. 2.2 percent said Charlie Hunt, Sr.

Down the road in Washington, N.H. the Atkins family was also busy this weekend, getting buried in sap Friday and Saturday.

"It's been a good steady run," Shawn Atkins told the Maple News on Saturday.

The farm was a popular stop on the Maple Open House Weekend tour in New Hampshire.

Over in Loudon, N.H. 9,000-tap sugarmaker Stefan Lillios was going strong too.

'This is our second full week," Lillios told the Maple News on Friday. ""It's been a slow start. There was so much snow in the ground the trees were not ready to thaw out just yet."

Down the road at Wind Swept Maples, Larry Moore and sons, Jeff, Brad and Sam had been very busy boiling.

"This is how sugaring used to be," Jeff Moore said. "A long winter. The hardest winter we can remember since 2015." [ MORE ]

Season Update #4: Quiet in Northern Vt so far

Peter Gregg | March 4, 2025

WEST BURKE, Vt.—Not much sap in the big Northern Vermont production areas, as sugarmakers wade through waist deep snow and wait for sugaring weather to arrive.

“It’s run only a little bit,” said 9,600-tap producer Kurt Solinsky of Pure Gold Sugaring in West Burke, who hosted the VMSMA’s Governor Tree Tapping event yesterday with Gov. Phil Scott. “It just keeps snowing, a few inches every day.”

Solinsky said this winter has been the most severe in many years.

“This is like the winters we used to get when I was a kid.”

He has not made much syrup at all.

Shawn Messier of 5,300-tap Messier Family Sugarhouse in Walden, Vt. and president of the Caldedonia Maple Association said it has been the same at his farm.

“This is an ‘old school’ winter,” he said at the event. “This is the worst winter we’ve had since 2001 and that year was the least amount of sap we ever got.”

Mark Isselhardt, the Maple Specialist for the UVM Ext. Maple Program said there has been some syrup made in Vermont, but a slower start than the previous couple of seasons. [ MORE ]

Season Update #3: Trees waking up this week, but slowly

Peter Gregg | February 25, 2025

COPENHAGEN, N.Y.—Trees are starting to wake up in most of the Maple Belt. But for some, it may be a while yet until they see some sap.

“We got five feet of snow outside,” said 300-tap sugarmaker Michael Eisel of Copenhagen, N.Y., a town in the direct landing zone of lake effect snow off Lake Ontario in Northern NY.

“This is a good old fashioned winter like we used to have,” he said.

In fact, this has been the snowiest and coldest winter in most of the U.S. and Canada in at least seven years, meaning early boilers were shut out. [ MORE ]