Sap Cicles
March 29, 2006
Provided by: P Riemer
Summary authors & editors: P Riemer
It's now spring in Waupaca County, Wisconsin (in central Wisconsin), which means that daytime temperatures are typically above freezing, and the nights are in the teens (-7 C). A damaged branch of a maple tree is shown above leaking sap that has frozen into sap-cicles. Higher up in this tree, little holes drilled by the sapsucker woodpecker are dripping sap every 10 seconds or so. It takes 10 gallons of sap to make a quart of syrup. On a healthy, mature sugar maple, one tap hole can produce about 10 gallons during the sap season (early spring). With a bit of imagination you can almost taste the sweetness of the maple syrup.
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