FAIRVIEW – Oscoda County held its traditional Maple Syrup weekend March 27. Although COVID kept the numbers down, the people who were out and visiting had plenty of chances to feed their “sweet tooth.”
According to Wiki, Maple syrup is usually made from the xylem sap of sugar maple, red maple, or black maple trees, although it can also be made from other maple or hardwood species. These trees store starch in their trunks and roots before winter. The starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in late winter and early spring.
Maple trees are tapped by drilling holes into their trunks and collecting the sap, which is processed by heating to evaporate much of the water, leaving the concentrated syrup. Most trees can produce 20-60 liters (5-15 US gallons) of sap per season.
Photos by Mark Constance
