Maple Syrup Festival Moved Due To Flooding

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Over a dozen people gathered at the new Environmental Learning Center just east of Oskaloosa on Saturday morning to learn more about Maple Syrup.

Laura DeCook, Mahaska County Naturalist was on hand to teach about the process of collecting the sap from the trees and refining it into syrup.

The yearly event was moved from Eveland Access, along the Des Moines River, to the Environmental Learning Center this year due to flooding. The Maple trees that provide the sap along the river have been impacted by the spring floods.

Early spring is when the sap begins to move, and the Mahaska County Conservation Department would have been out weeks ago tapping the trees.

“We start in February, the latest, to first part of March and we’ll spend an entire week collecting sap. We’ll evaporate it and finish it within a week, week and a half. There are people that are still out there that can access the areas. It’s the prime time when the temperatures during the day are above freezing and the nighttime temperatures are below freezing, and there is more daylight hours. What’s happening is the trees are coming out of dormancy from the winter and the sap is flowing through the trees, so it makes it a perfect time to collect sap, which in turn can be turned into maple syrup,” explained DeCook.

The sap is stored in the root system and is now being pushed through the tree to bring it out of dormancy.

“In the fall, the sap flows down into the root system of the trees, [and] stays there below the frost line during the winter, and in the spring it works its way back up,” DeCook said.

When it comes to evaporating the sap into syrup, it can be a very lengthy process.

“If you consider, about 40 gallons of Sugar Maple sap will eventually be evaporated into one gallon of syrup. So there is a lot of water to take out of the sap,” DeCook said. “It’s a slow process. It’s not a fast boiling at first, it’s a slow heat up of the sap, enough just so it starts evaporating into the air.”

The conservation department has a wood stove they use to heat the sap. “It will take us a good 12 hours to get through the first process, then three or four more hours of finishing it,” added DeCook of the process of making syrup.

“The best trees to use are Maple varieties, and there are quite a few here in Iowa. Sugar Maple has the most sugar content in the sap, so you will get the best product out of the Sugar; and Black Maple, actually. Those kinds of trees. The sooner you get it in the spring, sap I’m referring to, the better quality of syrup you will have; better taste. You can collect it later on but it will affect the color and the taste.”

Those in attendance were able to enjoy a sample of the maple syrup on some ice cream. Unfortunately, with the flooding, no new syrup was produced, so they used last year’s syrup.

“We will continue this every year. We’ve been promoting that we would like to find volunteers. If this is something anybody else would like to help with next year, we can get you out in the field and teach you the process hands-on as we do it,” said DeCook in closing. “We would love to have volunteers.”