For the sports fans out there, this time of year brings about thoughts of March Madness and the Sweet Sixteen, but we agrarians know of a different kind of sweetness in the air – sugaring season! We partnered with an Oberlin-based non-profit, Shagbark Haven, to pilot a sap collection program on the George Jones Memorial Farm where we analyzed data from a small subset of Maple trees located on our wooded lot. This data helped us to approximate how much sap will be produced per tree, and, using a Brix meter to measure the sugar content in the sap, we can now estimate how much syrup will be produced when the evaporation process is completed. All collected sap this season was donated to Shagbark Haven, and will be distributed to youth programs in the community learning about the history of maple syrup in Northeast Ohio. We hope to build on this data over the summer to identify more Maple trees on site and one day collect enough sap that we can provide it to City Fresh shareholders and wholesale buyers alike. Special thanks goes out to David & June Dorsey for letting us partner with their wonderful organization this year. How sweet it is!
-Pete Morris, Farm Manager
