The effects of a multi-year summer drought on maple syrup
– Tim Rademacher (Centre ACER), Audrey Maheu, Gabriel Bastien-Beaudet (Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO)), Jessica Durand, Stephane Corriveau (Centre ACER)
Droughts are increasingly common and intense disturbances in Quebec with potential repercussions on maple production. In extreme cases, drought can kill maple trees. However, the effects can be more subtle with growth reductions, damage to the hydraulic system, and reductions in non-structural carbon reserves which in turn can affect maple syrup flow and production. Despite the importance of drought in the context of maple production it has not yet been studied for two main causes; first, the unpredictability of droughts makes them difficult to study and second, studying droughts after the fact is also difficult, since key information about the event is typically missing. To address these issues, an increasingly widespread way to study drought is to use an experimental design that simulate drought conditions, such as precipitation exclusion systems. The Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) has set up and maintained such a system in natural maple groves at Kenauk since 2021 under the direction of Prof. Audrey Maheu. This system offers the opportunity to study the effects of drought on maple syrup flow for the first time.
