WEST EDMESTON, N.Y.—Despite what many are calling a record-breaking barn buster of a crop, bulk prices should largely hold from where they were before the season started.

Bruce Bascom of Bascom Maple Farms in Alstead, N.H. said he will pay $2.20 per pound for the top two table grades; $2.10 for dark robust; $1.90 for very dark and $1.25 for processed commercial.

Mike Parker of Parker Family Maple in West Chazy, N.Y., a buyer for Bascom in New York State, was busy on Friday and Saturday taking in syrup from sugarmakers at the open house for Mill Creek Maple Supply in Edmeston.

"We have 12 trailer loads filled already," Parker said, in between grading and loading barrels into the back of his big rig trailer.  Last year, Parker collected 22 trailer loads and expected to gather at least that much this year for Bascom.

Bascom has said at recent maple events that the retail market is growing by 10 percent per year.  Others have said the market is expanding even faster.

In Wisconsin, Pete Roth of Roth Sugar Bush in Cadott, Wisc. said he would pay $2.10 for the top three table grades, filtered and hot packed; $1.60 for very dark and $1.00 or less for processed commercial.

Still those prices are down considerably from two years ago, mainly because the Canadian dollar has fallen so far, making Canadian syrup much cheaper on the world market, thus forcing U.S. prices down to compete.

The crop in Quebec has still not been declared.  In the Beauce region of the province, many are saying its a record breaker. 

But Benoit Pepin, owner of Dominion & Grimm and part of the Pepin sugaring family north of Montreal, said on Friday that the crop in the far eastern part of the province came in shorter than expected.

Still, Pepin predicted the crop in Quebec would be 140 million pounds.