WEST BURKE, Vt.—Not much sap in the big Northern Vermont production areas, as sugarmakers wade through waist deep snow and wait for sugaring weather to arrive.

“It’s run only a little bit,” said 9,600-tap producer Kurt Solinsky of Pure Gold Sugaring in West Burke, who hosted the VMSMA’s Governor Tree Tapping event yesterday with Gov. Phil Scott. “It just keeps snowing, a few inches every day.”

Solinsky said this winter has been the most severe in many years.

“This is like the winters we used to get when I was a kid.”

He has not made much syrup at all. 

Shawn Messier of 5,300-tap Messier Family Sugarhouse in Walden, Vt. and president of the Caldedonia Maple Association said it has been the same at his farm.

“This is an ‘old school’ winter,” he said at the event. “This is the worst winter we’ve had since 2001 and that year was the least amount of sap we ever got.”

Mark Isselhardt, the Maple Specialist for the UVM Ext. Maple Program said there has been some syrup made in Vermont, but a slower start than the previous couple of seasons.

“The exit from winter into spring has yet to be determined,” he said. “Sap flow is unpredictable. But in general, the longer you go with winter, the more concerned people get.”

The long winter has given extra time for the big producers to get drilled.

At Sweet Tree, the nation’s biggest operation with 430,000 taps in Island Pond, Vt., CEO Ronald Lencz told The Maple News that they are fully tapped and ready to go. Just waiting on the trees.

“We had some runs around New Year’s but we’ve been frozen since then,” he said.

Meanwhile, tariffs were on people’s minds.

President Trump today went forward with a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods, including syrup and equipment.

David Marvin, owner of Butternut Mountain Farms in Morrisville, Vt. said he was not happy with the situation.

“Yes, I am concerned,” Marvin told the Maple News. “It’s the unpredictablity.”

Sen. Peter Welch, (D-Vermont) who was on hand for the tapping event, said the tariffs on Canada were “a big mistake.”

“This could make life difficult for our sugarmakers,” he said.

Marvin said it was too early to say what effect the tariffs might have on the bulk price he offers to producers this spring.

The size of the crop and the exchange rate of the U.S. and Canadian dollars will also determine bulk prices paid to producers in the U.S., he said.

Other parts of the U.S. are also waiting for sap.

In Northern Ohio, it has been very quiet, and worrisome.

“The long range forecast for the last two weeks of March show very few freezing nights,” said Les Ober, maple specialist for OSU Ext. 

Ober said very little syrup has been made in the big production areas of Northern Ohio so far.

“Hopefully things turn around. You can make a lot of syrup in a two week window but we need the good weather.”