While steam rises from the houses, spring snow settles among the groves. It is this forested serenity that Steve Wheeler, a fifth-generation sugarmaker, loves best. Wheeler runs the family’s certified organic maple farm, where, at the age of six, he first started helping his father and grandfather make syrup. Back then, they collected sap in galvanized buckets and hauled them back through the snowy woods. “I’ve spent 50 years making maple syrup,” Wheeler says, “and you’re still excited about next sugar season.”

Wheeler operates his sugarbush with his wife and two sons in the small agriculture-rich town of Derby, Vermont. He hopes to continue running the farm and shop well into the future, passing it on to his descendants if he can. But things have not been so clear cut for sugarmakers lately. A stiff tariff from the Trump administration on Canadian goods, including the equipment used to make syrup, has unsettled the industry and could drive up the price of U.S. syrup. This has coincided with a slow syrup run in February. Such short-term woes are combining with longer-term concerns, as a changing climate alters both production and the business model.

So the Wheelers and other sugarmakers are expanding into other tree syrups, to fortify their businesses in the face of changing weather (political and actual) and in hopes of keeping forests healthy. Researchers and farmers alike are investigating species like beech, sycamore, walnut, and even other species of maple.

“When all of a sudden you can tap a birch tree too, it’s almost magic to me,” Wheeler says. “It’s like one more thing I can do.”

A Short Tapping Season Is Now in Flux

“You’re really talking about a relatively small number of actual days that contribute the vast majority of sap for your whole crop,” Isselhardt says. “If it’s all condensed into this few number of days, if anything goes wrong, mechanically or climate-wise or weather-wise, that can have an impact on production.”

Maple syrup also depends on a freeze-thaw cycle: When temperatures are below freezing at night but above it in the day, the difference in air pressure helps push sap through the tree and out through the taps. The increase in unpredictability from both climate change and other risks, like invasive species and disease, present challenges to producers, creating uncertainty for the future.

Bigger swings in temperature, for instance, mean a much more variable tapping window than decades past. The Wheelers are now tapping maples about two months earlier, for example. Abnormally high temperatures could cause maples to bud too soon, impacting the grade of the syrup. On the other hand, warmer weather can also make the sap flow better in areas that have historically been too cold. Either way, sugarmakers foresee more adaptation ahead.

Building More Resilient Forests Through Multiple Species

The Sami people—Indigenous to northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia—tap birch trees, as do the Indigenous peoples of Alaska, where birch is abundant and winters are harsh. The addition of birch sap into diets in the spring has been an important infusion of nutrients after long, hard winters.

Today, researchers are looking to these different trees and their saps to help build both climate resilience and business strength.

Mike Farrell, co-founder of Forest Farmers, a syrup business based in Vermont and New York, says the impact of climate change on maple syrup has so far been a net positive, particularly as producers have been able to adapt with better technology and long-term forest management. Farrell has been studying and producing maple and other syrups since the early 2000s. Over the past decade, there’s been a marked uptick of interest in alternative syrups, he says.

At Forest Farmers, Farrell focuses on forest stewardship and sustainable food production. His business is one of the few food brands to have earned a gold level for Regenerative Organic Certification, the highest standard for organic food. Forest Farmers produces a line of certified organic tree syrups, currently sold wholesale, including birch, beech, and walnut syrups, in addition to maple.

Prior to founding Forest Farmers, Farrell was the director of Cornell University’s Uihlein Maple Research Forest, a living laboratory of more than 350 acres, aimed primarily at helping farmers manage their forests and businesses with research-proven practices. Though Uihlein historically focused on maple syrup, its purview now includes other species. The forest also offers a protective habitat for several songbirds whose numbers are in decline, and syrups produced there are certified as bird-friendly. Work at the forest taught Farrell the benefits of diversity.

 “You need to have a resilient, sustainable forest to have a resilient, sustainable business,” Farrell says. “It’s all based on a healthy forest. If your forest is not healthy, your business will not be either.”

This biodiversity is better for business, too. Young beech trees, which can compete with sugar maples, are often culled. If beech trees became a financial asset, though, sugarmakers could keep them along with the maples. As one of the few commercial producers of several different syrups, including birch, beech, and a walnut-maple blend, Forest Farmers provides a real-life case study. Per gallon, the researchers estimate, beech could sell for upward of $500, compared to $50 for maple and between $100-$170 for birch.

Different trees are also better suited to specific areas; birches like more light than maple, and sycamores grow near water. Maples wouldn’t necessarily grow in those areas, anyway. Why not use the trees that are already there?

The Wheelers first became interested in birch syrup after talking to other birch syrup producers, including some in Alaska, who taught them how to tap birch without harming the tree.

They had already put effort into diversifying their business beyond a single maple product by also selling condiments, maple sweets, and locally produced pancake mix. With birch syrup, they could go even further. The same equipment could be used for both maple and birch. And they were curious: Could a new kind of syrup business be tapped on their land? 

The Downsides of Alternative Syrups

A maple tree’s sap. (Photo courtesy of University of Vermont Extension)

That means alternative syrups inherently cost more to make, and the resulting syrup has to be priced to match. The market size of non-maple syrups is still quite small, partly because the flavors are still novel: alternative syrups are usually more acidic than maple. Birch leads the way after maple, with well-established markets in Canada and Alaska and a few new sellers in the northeast.

“Maple is always going to be dominant,” Farrell says. “All these things are always going to be small niches. They don’t compete with maple.”

Also, comparatively little research has been done on non-maple syrups. Making syrup from sap involves breaking the tree’s protective layer of bark. While the tapping of maple trees has been studied extensively, including an ongoing 11-year study into the effects of harvesting sap at the University of Vermont, researchers don’t know as much about the long-term impact of tapping non-maples. There also isn’t as much research on these syrups and human health, including the effects of heavy metals in the sap.

Then there’s the relative lack of regulation for alternative syrups. Maple syrup is classified according to specific grades standardized by the USDA; when consumers buy a certain grade, like amber, they know what they’re getting. But there is no such system with the newer syrups. Consumers could get two drastically different products from two different producers. Future regulation for alternative syrups, including both quality and methodology, will make these alternative syrups much easier to market.

The Future of Syrup

“Being a research forest, we’re trying to do this for landowners to be able to picture it, too, within their forest, so they cannot just rely on one individual species—and so that if there were some kind of event that would disrupt maple sap flow, or an invasive insect that would harm the maples, there’s more species out there as that kind of backup option,” Wild says.

Maples have been included in research grants under the Acer Access and Development Program (maples fall under the genus Acer), authorized by the 2018 Farm Bill and funded through annual appropriations. Through these grants, universities (including Cornell) have been able to provide vital research and development for maple syrup. With government funding getting slashed, the future of the farm bill—and the research it funds—remains to be seen.

For Wheeler, resources provided by northeastern universities have been pivotal for increasing yields and taking care of the forest. Even small tweaks to their methods, like replacing spouts and tap depth, have increased the outflow of sap dramatically.

“I’m very thankful that we have all of those research centers, and I am indebted to them all,” Wheeler says. “We are learning, and we are becoming bigger, better, faster, smarter in how we do things, and it’s vital to the future.”

Tree Syrups 101

Photo courtesy of Adam Wild, Cornell Maple Program

Any deciduous tree sap can make syrup. Not all sap is created equal; the sugars and other chemicals in each require different production methods and create different flavors. Birch is relatively easy to find online; beech, sycamore, and walnut take a little more work to track down.

Birch

Birch syrup, usually from paper birch trees, is typically darker and more acidic than maple. It is also the most developed market after maple, including both the syrup and the sap itself, which is sold as a drink. The sap is used for flavoring in soda and in breweries and is also becoming more popular on the natural drinks scene, offering minerals like calcium, potassium, manganese, and zinc. Birch sap runs when temperatures are above freezing, after maple season ends in the spring. Find online at Jed’s Maple Products, Forest Farmers, and the Uihlein Maple Research Forest.

Sycamore

When processed correctly, sycamore syrup has a light flavor often compared to butterscotch. As with birch sap, sycamore is high in fructose and glucose as well as acid, which calls for lower temperatures during processing. Sycamore sap is quite watery and requires more than 100 gallons to make one gallon of syrup. Sycamore syrup is quite hard to find commercially. One of the few producers is Hillsboro Maple Works in West Virginia, which also produces birch, beech, black walnut, and hickory syrups.

Beech

The syrup’s flavor is fruity and raisin-like. Like birch and sycamore, beech contains both fructose and glucose, and it takes well over 100 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup. It is also harder to harvest; the only way is to use vacuum pumps. Beech sap runs during both freeze/thaw cycles as well as into warmer temperatures, so beech tapping season falls between maple and birch in the spring. Forest Farmers, which only sells wholesale, is one of the few producers of beech syrup. So far, it’s not available for retail.

Walnut

Walnut syrup, also composed of sucrose, tastes quite similar to certain maple syrups, though it might register as a bit nuttier. Most producers of walnut syrup use sap from black walnuts, common in the eastern half of North America. Walnut sap doesn’t flow as abundantly as sugar maple, and it also contains pectin, making it more likely to clog filters (whether cloth or mesh) and reverse osmosis systems. Tapping walnut trees is a relatively new endeavor, so relatively little research has been done. Find walnut syrup at Tonoloway Farm in Virginia.