As drought conditions continue to worsen across Maine, maple producers and industry experts are worrying about the health of the sugarbush, and what this year's drought could mean for future sap and syrup yields.
Jason Lilley, a maple industry educator with the UMaine Cooperative Extension, says the fact that maple trees are dropping their leaves a week early indicates they are stressed, and stress is bad for sugar production. But, he says, maple trees have an "insurance policy" — they can store sugars for several years.
"If the trees experience a year of really significant stress, they have a reserve to draw on, so that they don't just die. That's a good thing," Lilley says. "Our trees have a little bit of resilience that's naturally built into them."
The challenge, Lilley says, is that recently, it hasn't been just one stressful year. 2019, 2020, 2021 were also drought years, 2023 was extremely wet and cloudy, and 2025 is back to severe drought, which can have a cumulative effect on trees' health and survival.
"What we're experiencing is more and more years of stressor back-to-back-to-back," Lilley says.
Alan Greene is the president of the Maine Maple Producers Association and owner of Greene Maple Farm in Sebago. He says since sap collected in the spring actually contains sugars the tree produced several years ago, he expects syrup producers won't see much of an immediate impact.
"I'm hopeful that it hasn't been bad enough, long enough to create a real issue this year," Greene says. "But whether the cumulative effects of the last few years will start taking a toll, that's something we're going to have to watch."
Greene says other producers he knows are "unnerved" about how dry it is in the woods. But like all farmers, they're at the mercy of the weather.
Jason Lilley says the Cooperative Extension is working with maple producers on research projects to better understand and track how maple trees respond to the cumulative impacts of stressors like drought.
