"salty" Syrup from Roadside Sugar Maples in Decline

M.F. MORSELLI and M.L. WHALEN Maple Research Laboratory Botany Department College of Agriculture and Life Sciences University of Vermont October 1987 FINAL REPORT We had two objectives in the study of sugar maples which showed signs of decline and stress on a roadside where deicing salt was used in the winter. One goal was to determine If tree stress is related to the levels offsodium and chloride in their sap and in the groundwater and soil around their roots; and, if so, to develop methodology approved by the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) that would allow any laboratory to use a standard method to assess maple tree decline due to sodium and chloride effect. The second goal was to evaluate the quality of the syrup processed from sap aseptically collected from maples in decline. We are updating here the later objective of the project that is of interest to the sugar maple producers. From our study we chose sugar maples from three different groups: 1) healthy In a sugarbush (N = 9); 2) in decline for unknown reasons in sugarbush (N = 3), and 3) in decline along a rural road where deicing salt is used (N =9). We have previously described design and methodology used for the study (1,2,3). Analyses of maple sap and syrup, and groundwater and soil were performed for sodium and chloride by atomic absorption and ion chromatography respectively (2). Saps were aseptically collected (N = 103) during two sap flow seasons and samples with enough sap were boiled to syrup (N =61). However, not all syrup samples had enough syrup for the chemical analysis.