BY SHERI McWHIRTER
Traverse City -- This may not be a super sweet maple syrup year in northern Michigan.
Unusually warm weather conditions this season make it more difficult to coax sap from the region's maple trees and production is expected to dip well below last year's banner numbers, local producers said.
"We might be at a third of what we'd make on an average year," said Tim Olds, a longtime maple syrup producer from Kingsley. "The weather is giving us trouble this year."
Maple sap flows best when days are warm and temperatures dip below freezing at night. That's been hit-or-miss this year.
"We'll see what the next week holds. When the trees push buds out, we're done," said Russell Kidd, district forestry educator with Michigan State University Extension and a maple syrup expert.
Last year Michigan produced about 115,000 gallons of maple syrup, a 10-percent increase over the previous year. More syrup hadn't been produced here in more than six decades.
Experts don't expect a repeat performance this season.
"It's not going to be a good one," Kidd said.
Antrim County maple syrup producer Leta Luchenbill said she's also way down on syrup gallons.
"It's a lousy year. We're not getting any sap," she said. "It's worse than slow."
Luchenbill produced between 800 and 1,000 gallons last year, with no hopes to approach that figure this season. She made just 75 gallons last week, she said.
Olds hopes forecasted colder overnight temperatures this weekend may spur a surge in sap flow, but it may not be enough to hit normal production levels.
"It's bleak at best right now," Olds said.
Another complication is last year's forest tent caterpillar infestation that resulted in trees without leaves, Kidd said.
Defoliation meant the lacking maple leaves weren't producing sugars, so the sap may not be as sweet this year. It could take larger sap quantities to create sweet syrup, Kidd said.
Michigan ranked fifth in maple syrup production nationally in 2009, when all U.S. producers made a collective 2.33 million gallons.
