9/23/2023 0 Comments Tapping big leaf maple treesTapping bigleaf maples is an exciting way to engage with your forest, spend time with family and friends, and create a delicious treat for personal use or even commercial sale. This isn’t your traditional syrup, bigleaf maple syrup has a distinct and complex flavor that makes a unique and valuable local product. Syrup and other sugar products made from bigleaf maple sap is an emerging non-timber forest product in the Pacific Northwest. If you want to learn more about any of this the workshops or USU's involvement with these maple trees, go to Maple Tapping Workshop | Events | USU.Bigleaf Maple Syrup Workshop – Quilcene Septem(10AM – 3PM) Learn how to tap bigleaf maple and make your own syrup! And thank you all for joining us this week for use your extension educational highlight. Sariah Israelsen: Well that all sounds pretty exciting. But right now, it's just a bunch of neighbors getting together having fun with common hobby that connects us with each other and with the community and listed beautiful woodland environments and when which we live. Greg Witt: Well, it's just been a fun, fun hobby. This was such a fun topic to learn about. Sariah Israelsen: Greg, thank you so much for coming and talking with me about this. And what happened is we have more people interested in tapping maple syrup than we ever expected. And there was so much community energy and engagement and involvement. The first time we've offered a workshop here in Woodland Hills, I think we had 50 people sign up for it and 64 people showed up. Greg Witt: They learn all the aspects, everything from identifying maple tree sap in the tree, producing the syrup, looking for the right weather conditions and then into the production of the syrup. Sariah Israelsen: With these workshops that you guys have going on, what are people able to learn about them? And what are they able to experience with these maple trees? And it's a wonderful product, high quality syrup - high quality products that are very distinctive from the maple syrup that you might buy at any store like Costco or Target or wherever. We are the only commercial producers of Big Tooth Maple Syrup. And there's a limited amount of maple syrup production in Washington state and in Oregon, but they have big leaf maple trees.Īnd so, what we have here in Utah is Big Tooth Maple trees. Greg Witt: Well, I think that the grant wants to see if they can expand maple syrup production beyond just the Northeast. What is the purpose of doing the workshops and having these maple trees? Sariah Israelsen: So, what do you hope comes from all of this? I know you guys are doing workshops, and different things like that. But it's exciting to see the growth so fast. Sariah Israelsen: That is quite a big leap from five to 500. And it's all just a result of the help and the support with that from Utah State University. And so this year we are tapping 500 maple trees here in Woodland Hills. And we talked about it with neighbors and got a lot of positive feedback. You have some good output, and we're wondered if you might be interested in being a demonstration site for a grant that we have from the USDA."Īnd so we agreed to that. And I got a call a few weeks later saying, "Hey, this is this is pretty interesting. And we submitted our results on an online database, managed by Utah State University. So, it's an ideal environment for producing things with maple syrup. And that's where the bigtooth maple grows. And we live up here in Woodland Hills, Utah, and we're at an elevation of 5000-7000 vertical feet. Greg Witt: Well, it really started about a year ago, when we started with five maple trees. Sariah Israelsen: So, you said that this project is just a group of friends and neighbors that have gotten together and have kind of partnered with USU right now. Greg Witt, head of the nonprofit Woodland Hills Outdoors is here to talk to us about the USU Extensions bigtooth maple project that they are a part of. Thanks for joining us again this week for USU Extension Educational Highlight. Sariah Israelsen: This is Utah Public Radio, and I'm Sariah Israelsen.
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