Experts predicted a ‘maple-pocalypse.’ But Vermont’s syrup industry is booming. – The Boston Globe

Awards for maple syrup are pinned to the wall of the kitchen within the Branon sugarhouse in Fairfield, Vt.
Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff

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Cecile Branon looks at the tapped maple trees just outside the sugarhouse at Branon Family Maple Orchards.
Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff

For Cecile Branon, 68, the innovations have made it possible to imagine passing the operation on to the next generation.

“They already have plans,” she said of her grandchildren.

Maple production in Vermont has climbed to about 3 million gallons annually, with revenue approaching $100 million a year. The state makes more than half the syrup produced in the country. The gains are not just a result of sugar makers tapping more maples. The amount of sap produced per tap — the small spout inserted into a tree — has more than doubled since the start of the century.

Even 20 years ago, the industry’s continued growth was a major question. Maple syrup is a high-stakes crop because the bulk of the season’s product is made on just a handful of sap “runs,” when shifting temperatures create pressure changes that push clear, sweet liquid from the trees. Those perfect conditions typically happen in late winter or early spring, though some producers have found ways to take advantage of sap runs when the weather warms up even earlier.

Emma Marvin, the co-owner of Butternut Mountain Farm in Morrisville, Vt., said the precarious, weather-dependent nature of sugaring means producers have to be good at navigating uncertainty.

“There’s no indication for us what our yield is going to be other than what the weatherman tells us,” Marvin said. “Some of the volatility is baked in, and we’re used to adapting to it.”

Climate change is disrupting the delicate balance of freezing nights and above-freezing days required to trigger sap runs. Temperatures in Vermont, one of the fastest-warming states, have risen by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900. In 2012, a series of heat waves cut the season short, causing maple trees to “bud out” and ruining the flavor of the sap. Production in New England fell by nearly a third from the year prior.

Extreme weather, exacerbated by climate change, poses another threat. Severe storms can rip down tubing and fell trees. Flooding and drought stress the roots of sugar maples, a “Goldilocks” tree that doesn’t like to be too wet or dry.

Cecile Branon, a fourth-generation sugar maker in Fairfield, has seen these changes firsthand. The Branons are one of Vermont’s best-known maple families and manage a sugaring operation that surpassed 100,000 taps this year, a point of pride. Blue ribbons decorate a wall in the sugarhouse, including a hefty rosette for “best of show” at the Vermont Maple Festival.

After digging through more than two decades of her husband’s daily notes logging the work done on the land, Cecile Branon found that the start of the sugaring season has been steadily creeping earlier, changing by as much as a week some years.

“You could see it right in his book,” she said.

The two major innovations the Branons have adopted — vacuum tubing systems and reverse osmosis machines — are now widespread across the industry. Both technologies directly combat how climate change stresses maples.

The tubing sucks sap from the trees, increasing yields from unpredictable sap runs. Reverse osmosis machines, similar to those used in desalination plants, remove much of the water from sap to create a sugary liquid that boils into syrup more quickly. The machines keep production profitable even when sugar levels drop due to climate disruptions.

Other sugar makers are adjusting their forest management practices, reinforcing culverts and other infrastructure to withstand extreme weather, and embracing red maples, a resilient species long overlooked by maple producers. Producers have also started to tap trees earlier, so as not to miss out on a significant share of the season.

“The folks who are going to thrive are the ones who are able to make adjustments and don’t just rely on the way things have always been,” said Mark Isselhardt, University of Vermont Extension’s maple specialist.

At the Baird Farm in the foothills of the Green Mountains, Bob Baird had long assumed he’d be the last in his family to produce syrup on the land. But by keeping up with the latest practices, he and his wife, Bonnie, made it possible for their daughter Jenna Baird and her partner, Jacob Powsner, to take over.

“It’s not even a question,” Powsner said. “Either adapt, or you lose a huge amount of ability to compete in the modern marketplace.”

Jenna Baird and Powsner have made these changes part of their branding. Their maple jugs show blue tubing threading through the woods and a solar panel on top of their shed. On a tote bag emblazoned “Syrup Daddy,” Bob Baird flashes a toothy grin with tubing looped over his arm.

The marketing is paying off. Bob Baird said that when he recently visited the nearest city — Rutland, population 15,500 — a man recognized him and said his girlfriend wouldn’t believe he had met Baird in person.

Despite the progress, many questions remain about the industry’s future. At the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center, scientists are trying to fill the research gaps. They’ve tricked out a tree with monitoring devices to better understand how maples are faring, and are assessing how vacuum pumps affect tree health over time.

“There’s unfortunately very little research specific to maple,” said Tim Rademacher, a German plant biologist who runs the center. “That explains partly why somebody who grew up in a country without maples can still make a career in it.”

The center works closely with producers, meaning a paper published one year might affect the practices of sugar makers the next.

Maple producers continue to worry about whether Vermont will continue to have suitable growing conditions. One 2019 paper predicted that the region of maximum sap flow would shift north by about 250 miles by 2100. Some researchers, though, challenge those findings and say they do not mean maples will disappear from Vermont. Predictions of the industry’s demise have been overstated for decades, they added.

Allison Hope, executive director of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association, said maple producers have to be “eternal optimists.” The technology can only go so far when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

“They’ve mitigated the effects of climate change up till now,” she said, but “what’s that next thing? Have we taken it as far as we can?”

That future felt far off this March at the Branon sugarhouse, where the sugaring season was in full swing. The air was steamy and thick with the smell of boiling sap. One of Tom and Cecile’s sons manned the equipment, while Cecile Branon whipped up a fresh batch of maple granola.

She nodded toward her 5-year-old granddaughter Elsie, who was racing past the tanks and coils of tubing dressed in pink sweatpants and a sequined dress.

“Those trees,” she said, “need to be there for them.”

Kate Selig can be reached at kate.selig@globe.com. Follow her on X @kate_selig.