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St. Lawrence County maples in peril

Posted 1/25/16

By PAUL HETZLER Remember that kid at school who was good at everything? Smart, athletic, popular, usually in a higher income bracket—seems like there was one in every class who must have taken more …

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St. Lawrence County maples in peril

Posted

By PAUL HETZLER

Remember that kid at school who was good at everything? Smart, athletic, popular, usually in a higher income bracket—seems like there was one in every class who must have taken more than their fair share when luck was handed out. And didn’t you find them annoying some days?

I imagine that’s how the rest of the forest community feels about sugar maple, Acer saccharum. Also known as hard maple, this icon of the Northeast has worn out more camera shutters than any other tree. Whether it’s their stunning fall foliage, the welcome summer shade they provide, or the stately sense of grandeur a line of them brings to back roads, the native sugar maple stands apart.

In terms of firewood, sugar maple is the gold standard in northern New York, and it is prized for the gorgeous furniture and flooring it can become. Then there’s its sweetness. Never mind that maple production is important to our regional economy, pass the syrup already, my pancakes are getting cold!

No one knows how far back the tradition of sugaring goes. But the Haudenosaune (Iroquois), who taught the settlers how to make syrup and sugar from maples, still hold the tree in high esteem, and observe the Maple Thanksgiving every year to express gratitude for yet one more gift from the Creator.

In back yards across the North Country every spring, barbeques and homemade wood stoves are fired up to boil down maple sap. Who cares if it takes an entire tank of propane to make a pint of syrup, the point is that you made it. Commercial producers are already setting out lines in preparation for spring sap flow.

Wouldn’t you feel a bit jealous of sugar maple if you were an ironwood or poplar? I have my suspicions. I think the rest of the forest should give maple some slack, though, given its health problems. Sadly, our maples are not doing as well as they seem.

In October 2015, the alarming results of a new study looking at forty years of maple growth rings were released by SUNY-ESF in Syracuse. I’ll let one of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Neil Pederson, an ecologist at Harvard Forest in Massachusetts and an expert on tree rings and climate change, speak for himself:

“Outside of studies of red spruce in the 1970s, I have never seen anything quite like this. Most tree-ring studies of canopy trees in the region do not show a decline like what we see in these sugar maple. Combined with evidence of reduced natural regeneration of sugar maple in the region, it is a concern.”

Combined with the more immediate effects of other stressors, this does not bode well for maples. Over the past 30 years we’ve had more frequent droughts, including the unprecedented (in terms of soil moisture) one in 2012, and lesser known issues like the European fruit lecanium scale.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, maples now face new threats from invasive species never before seen in North America such as the spotted lanternfly. Asian jumping worms sound like a joke, but they could singlehandedly put an untimely end to your sugar bush if they get established there.

Anyone concerned about maple health, especially commercial producers, would learn a lot more about the threats facing the sugar maple, and what to do about them, by attending this Saturday’s Maple Expo at Gouverneur High School. For more information, please call Cornell Cooperative Extension at (315) 379-9192.

Paul Hetzler is a forester and Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County horticulture and natural resources educator.