🍁 Welcome to our maple tapping classroom. Professor Shane Hardy, our Ecology Director, shares some pointers about setting up the lines. When you follow forest management guidelines and techniques, tapping a sugar bush is a sustainable agricultural activity, presenting minimal impact on the environment and surrounding ecological systems. When you buy local maple syrup, you're not only supporting local economies, you're also promoting the preservation of maple trees and their surrounding forest, including all the wonderful ecological services it provides.

🪵 We're not just tapping the trees for the deliciousness of it all. This is also an opportunity for ecological monitoring. As Deputy Director of Ecology Elijah Goodwin explains, we're collecting data on the size, location, and output of each tree to track the impact that climate change may be having on sap output. We will also be sharing our data with research partners like the Columbia Climate School, who are interested in modeling the carbon sequestration potential of our woodland management system.

🥞 We hope everyone's enjoying this sweet maple tapping moment. What's your favorite way to use maple sap, sugar, or syrup?