Today there are more than 100 million maple trees in Canada, but only a few of them are tapped for syrup making. It takes on average 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. The collection of the sap, followed by its transformation into syrup by boiling, is a very old custom inherited from native Indians. They were the first to recognize it as a source of energy and nutrition. Taking sap from a tree does rob it of some nourishment, but because less than one-tenth of a tree's sugar food is removed during tapping, no harm is made to the tree.
Great care is provided by producers to ensure long term survival of the maple sugar bush .
Some maples have been tapped for 100 years or more and are still going strong. An average tree yields 68 to 90 litres of sap a year. In the early 1970s, science played a key role in helping the maple industry out of a worrisome downhill slide by giving farmers new methods of production. Researchers looked at gathering sap with tubing, using vacuum pumps, reverse osmosis, various types of evaporators and addressing basic questions about how to make the industry more efficient. Thirty years later, Canadian production has some of the most innovative forces in maple technology today.