By Connor Lynch
PAKENHAM — Despite the strange and unpredictable weather, maple syrup season wrapped up with solid production in Eastern Ontario.
Shirley Fulton at Fulton’s Pancake House and Sugar Bush at Pakenham, told Farmers Forum that their maple syrup season wrapped up on April 12. They ended up making about 4,000 litres of syrup, a litre per tap, which is an industry standard, she said. “Last year was a bumper crop, but we can’t have that every year.
This year was stop, start, stop, start. You’d sit around and wait, then hurry, hurry, hurry. Those days when it ran, it really ran.”
Vernon Wheeler, of Wheeler’s Pancake House and Sugar Camp at McDonalds Corners in Lanark County, said their season wrapped up on April 14. They ended up making about a litre and a half per tap. They’d had 31 days of running sap. Normally they’d get 21.
Gibbons Maple Sugar House at Frankville, near Brockville, had an earlier wrap to the season, finishing on April 3 with average production. “We had a lot of March-like temperatures in February, and then a lot of January and February temperatures in March.”
