March, 2026

The UConn Forest Crew is at it again! Maple sugaring, along with maintenance of the sugarbush (the forest stand where we tap sugar maple trees) has fallen to the UConn Forest Crew in recent years, which makes sense because, while sugaring is a maximum of 6 weeks of activity, maintenance of the forest where the sugar maples grow is a year-round consideration. Last summer the crew was out there controlling barberry bushes and repairing sap lines. You can see some of the blue tubing hanging in the back of the sugarhouse. These are the lines that bring the sap from the trees to the collection tank – a vast improvement from the days when we would hang a bucket on each tree. Sugaring season starts when the trees are experiencing sunny days and above freezing temperatures during the day, but it goes back below freezing at night. This drives the sap up and down the tree, and in our case, out into our collection lines.

In CT we’ve been tapping at the end of January, because even if the weather isn’t perfect, we want to be prepared for when the sap starts flowing. This year, however, the end of January was very cold, and we didn’t tap trees until well into February. The Crew ran vinegar through the lines to clean them out, then tapped the trees with the spiles, which allow the sap to run out of the tree and into the lines. As the weather warmed up during the day, the sap starts running into a large collection tank on the downhill side of the sugarbush. The crew picks it up from there and transports it back to the Sugar house.

Inside the sugarhouse is an evaporator – a big fancy pan over a firebox. The sap flows into here and boils forever. It takes 35-50 gallons of sap (depending on the starting sugar content which varies from tree-to-tree, from year-to-year) to boil down into 1 gallon of maple syrup (which has a very specific sugar content.

Here you can see the sugar house from the outside, and various members of this year forest crew patiently watching sap boil on the inside. The steam vents through the roof and the crew keeps and eye on fresh sap flowing in, and the temperature of the boiling sap. It will boil higher and higher as it gets away from being water and closer to being syrup, but we don’t want it to go over the temperature of syrup, because very quickly it will turn to two types of maple candy and then it will turn to pure carbon and be stuck to all of the pans!

Today, a visiting hound dog is inspecting their progress without getting her nose too close to the firebox.

Stay tuned for updates!

Northeast Forest Resources Extension Council meeting

(NeFREC)

Dec. 3 & 4, Haddam, CT

Every year in early December, extension foresters from the USFS northeast forest service region (MN to the East coast, and south to WV) gather to discuss hot topics and areas of concern in forestry outreach, but most importantly, to steal good ideas from the successful programs of their colleagues! While traditionally held at Grey Towers, the Pennsylvania family home of Gifford Pinchot (chief of the US Forest Service upon its creation) the meeting has roamed since the COVID years. The 2024 meeting was hosted by Tom Worthley, extension forester at UConn, at the Extension Center in Haddam, CT. Many states were represented, some in person and some remote. The following are some highlights shared from various corners of the northeast. (more…)

The following document was prepared by the Yankee Division of the Society of American Foresters (SAF) in 2020, in response to public sentiment and misinformation suggesting that the cutting of trees was not in keeping with goals of mitigating climate change and sequestering/storing terrestrial carbon. Sounds forestry practices are in fact some of the best tools we have to maintain healthy forests and their function as mitigators of the impacts of climate change and collectors of carbon. It is also the means by which we can preserve biodiversity and provide sustainable and renewable products (timber, maple syrup, etc.) while also meeting carbon and climate goals.

The entirety of SAF has gone on to adopt similar positions, as collected on their website. (more…)

The Slow Storm: Tree and Stand Mortality in CT during 2018 from drought, insects and diseases.

by Thomas E Worthley, UConn Associate Extension Professor, Forestry

During the last decade most tree-related front-page-newsworthy stories resulted from disruptions related to severe storm events that caused power outages, transportation disruptions and property damage that folks will long remember. Such events are sudden and dramatic, are certainly newsworthy and result in visible changes in our landscapes and neighborhoods. Less sudden and dramatic, but perhaps more intensively and extensively altering our wooded landscapes visibly and ecologically, is the slow and relentless “perfect storm” of weather patterns, invasive insects and opportunistic pathogens the last few years causing severe and extensive tree mortality, most noticeably in eastern CT. We are witnessing a landscape-scale change in forest species composition, age structure and stand condition such as not been experienced in a generation. (more…)