Online Course: Intro to Maple Syrup Production

Sugaring for Profit

Maple syrup production is rapidly growing around the Northeast and offers a sound financial opportunity to utilize woodlots. This course explores the range possibilities of maple sugaring on your land – be it for supplemental income or for your livelihood. Also discussed are “alternative” trees for production, including Birch and Black Walnut. The content presented assumes the student has little past knowledge of sugaring, but a background in agriculture or forestry will be very helpful.

Target Audience

BEGINNER/ALL LEVELS – This course is for who exploring the feasibility of sugaring on their land, and while the basics will be covered many seasoned sugarmakers will benefit from the content, especially new research that will be presented.

Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Identify the potential opportunities for producing maple sap and syrup on your land
• Develop and manage a forest stand for optimal maple sap production and long-term health and productivity
• Understand the costs and benefits of utilizing buckets, bags, gravity tubing, or vacuum enhanced tubing systems to gather sap
• Design a maple tubing system to achieve maximum sap yields in a cost-effective manner
• Understand the pros and cons and logistics of buying sap or leasing taps as a means of expanding your production
• Process sap into syrup in a cost effective manner that is appropriate for the size of the operation
• Filter, package, and label maple syrup for sale according to the new grading system developed by the International Maple Syrup Institute

Webinars

The bulk of the course happens on your own time, with discussions, readings, and assignments in Teachable, our virtual classroom. To add to the experience, webinars will be woven into the online interface of the course to allow you to meet on a weekly basis and ask questions to address your sugaring issues in real time. If you miss a webinar, they are always recorded and posted for later viewing.

Webinar Schedule

Live instruction for the 2021-2022 season will begin on Thurs. Nov 4, 2021 from 7-8:30pm Eastern time, and continue for 6 weeks (skipping Thanksgiving), with the final webinar on Thurs. Dec 16. While we encourage live attendance so you have the opportunity to engage with the presenters and ask questions, all webinars we will be posted in our online classroom for students to watch anytime. Once you have enrolled in this course, you will retain access to all materials indefinitely, and can return to participate in the live webinars as many times as you wish.