ORWELL, Ohio—Areas of the southern Maple Belt are almost done, and done early.

“It doesn’t look good here,” said Ray Gingerich of Orwell, Ohio. “We’re only on our second week of boiling and now it looks like it’s over.”

Gingerich said sugarmakers in his area of Northeast Ohio were already pulling taps or were about to, as temperatures hit the 70s and no freezes in sight for 10 days.

“People with buckets are hanging them up.”

He said most sugarmakers are only at about half of a crop or maybe a little better, which would amount to a disaster if it stopped now, given how little syrup there is in the marketplace and how high demand is, Gingerich said.

Over in Pennsylvania, producers were also about halfway, but more optimistic.

“We are hoping to survive this warm spell,” said David Yeany of Marienville, Pa. whose sugarbush is at 1800 feet and faces north and west. “We have been fortunate enough to get a light freeze thaw the last three nights, when none was predicted. Hope to keep it rolling.”

Yeany said he was at 800 gallons of syrup from 4300 taps, so far.

“We have had some really good runs and several great runs,” Yeany said. “Two, 3 gallon per tap days and one that was 2.5 gallons in 12 hours.”

In Northern New York, the season was just starting to open up for most.

Jake Moser of Moser's Maple in Croghan, N.Y. said the sap just started to run the middle of this week in the area, with most producers boiling no more than two times so far.

"From what I’m hearing most are pleased with quality of syrup so far and grade has been anywhere from golden to dark, but all are saying good syrup with no off flavors," Moser said.

Other sugarmakers in New York said the season has been slow. Many are saying there is a deep frost in the woods yet, and will still take time to thaw.

"I cut into a hollow tree this week and there was frost inside, I was surprised to see," said Greg Lapan, a sugarmaker in Fort Ann, N.Y.

Mike Grottoli, a sugarmaker in Middle Granville, N.Y. said the lack of snow cover this year didn't help.

"It was mostly an open winter so the frost went deep into the ground," he said.

Meanwhile, sugarmakers in almost every maple state were gearing up for maple open house weekend events, expected to draw big crowds despite a forcast of rain for almost all of the Northeast.

Laura Trudeau Parker of Parker's Maple Syrup in West Chazy, N.Y. said this week was the first big production week so far.

"After a late start with very cold temps and no sap til March, we are cranking out the syrup now," she told The Maple News.

The farm is at about 25 percent of a crop on its 100,000+ taps.

Sap sugar content has been unusually high at about 2.5 percent, she said.

"Yesterday was our first slammer sap run, making over 3,000 gals from it last night," Parker said on Thursday. "There's still a lot of snow on the ground here, so looking like we will weather this warm spell fine and hopefully continue to have a good season."