Cold nights, warm days – the sap is starting to flow in maple trees — It’s sugaring time. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by DuPont.
When you think maple syrup, New England typically comes to mind, but they also tap maple trees for their sap in the midwest. We’re at the Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, talking with bushmaster Joe Parrot.
“The bushmaster has to oversee all the trees that we tap, gather the sap each day, and boil it down. We leave the sugar house to go out into the sugar bush, stand and examine the trees a little bit, we want to make sure that the trees healthy and you also have to wait until the tree is 10 inches in diameter before you start tapping it. I get the best sap and the most sap if I tap on the sunny side of the tree. If I tap on the south side, southeast, or southwest, I do the best.”
After drilling a hole in the tree, Joe taps in a metal tube knows as a spile. The sap drips through into a bucket or a bag hanging onto the end of the spile.
“When you put the spile in, you can go by the sound. You want it tight, but you don’t want to split the wood around that hole. Hear that noise? That means it’s bottomed out. Now we’ll try…that is sap dripping. It takes a long time for it to drip out a gallon when you get one drop at a time. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.”
To hear some of your favorite Pulse of the Planet programs online, please visit nationalgeographic.com Pulse of the Planet is presented by DuPont, bringing you the miracles of science, with additional support provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. I’m Jim Metzner.