Weather & Science
Maple Syrup’s $1.5 Billion Industry Splinters as Winters Get Warmer
Climate change will push syrup producers to tap trees farther north and put the US industry at risk.
A tapped tree in Quebec.
Photographer: Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg
This article is for subscribers only.
It’s deep into winter on the northern fringe of the Quebec maple groves that feed Alan Bryson’s syrup-making operation and it’s so warm that tree sap has already started flowing.
“We’re seeing the maples trying to run in January when they’re really not supposed to,” the 47-year-old said from a wood shack in Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci in a wilderness expanse that’s a 90-minute drive north of Montreal. Unlike with his southernmost US counterparts, such mild trends could really boost his maple syrup output. “These extreme conditions have created the worst for us and the best for us.”