Martha's Blog April 7, 2010

Another sunny day with temperatures forecast as high as 80. I picked up sap samples from Jackie Hunter Rollins on Monday. The Hunters also had a poor year, only making half their usual harvest. Their last real run was also on March 12. Jackie and I stood in the saphouse yard shaking our heads. "Can you believe it," Jackie said. "This is April 5. No snow. Now sap."
In years past, all of us would have been standing in snow and making syrup.
Now, because of the heat and light for the past three weeks, buds are opening. The red maples opened this past weekend. Now the sugar maples are swelling. In 2007, the buds did not open until May 7. In 2008, they opened on April 24. They are likely to open much earlier this year.
I wonder, as I work in the lab at UNH, if this year's buds, pushed prematurely, will show any structural differences. Will they be injured, missing completion of some type of leaf cell just as premature babies often have incomplete development.
In the lab, I am treating buds from 2007 to dry them completely. When that is finished, we will embed them in paraffin and then slice them on the microtome for thin sections or microscope slides.
This year's buds look healthy so far. All have 7 buds on each 2009 twig, a sign that last year was a healthy growing year. But how are they developing now in high heat and intense light. The sky lately seems different than it has in other springs. The light is intense, dry, searing. There is no soft watery air that typifies the usual spring sky.
Jackie said her daughter is worried not only about the maples but about the apples and blueberries. If they bloom too early, they may be nipped by a late frost. Then we would have no apples or berries this year.
So, while the UNH kids loll on the great lawns in Durham in flipflops and shorts, we farmers are nervous.
Now we are building a baseline of sap and bud. "We're going to do this again next year, aren't we," Jackie said.