When one thinks of pure maple syrup—aside from the delicious image of the drizzled amber liquid cascading down a stack of pancakes—the prevailing assumption is that it’s produced in New England and Canada. But a new University of Kentucky study revealed what a few in the Commonwealth already had discovered: Kentucky has the potential to become a significant maple syrup producer, generating millions of dollars for local economies.
The study estimated that Kentucky could generate from $6-$25 million in economic impact, not to mention upwards of 1,000 new jobs.
Thomas Ochuodho, associate professor of forest economics and policy in UK’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, said it began in 2019, when he and agents from UK’s Cooperative Extension Service visited with maple syrup producers in Letcher County.
“They took us through some of the challenges that they had, and one of those was basically just lack of information,” Ochuodho said. “So many landowners have maple trees on their lands, [and] they are not even aware this is something they could do. Those who were aware don’t know how they could do it and … [wanted to know if it was] economically viable and at what scale.”
Ochuodho and fellow researchers from UK, Purdue University and the U.S. Forest Service collected and pored over data on tree density across the Commonwealth, sap yield, the length of Kentucky’s sap-tapping season, and the current price of maple syrup.
With that research, Ochuodho and his colleagues used economic impact models to determine just how much maple syrup production could benefit not only producers but Kentucky’s economy as a whole.
“Producers will purchase equipment … and it creates demand in the supply chain throughout the economy,” he said. “Those producers [then] use that income to make purchases in the economy, etcetera. We are looking at it from the very beginning to the end, where you have maple syrup at your dining table. That is the impact that you are seeing here.”
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John Duvall, the president of the Kentucky Maple Syrup Association (KMSA) and horticulture technician at Eastern Kentucky University’s Department of Agriculture, said the study is a great way to show potential producers exactly how they can use this renewable resource year after year.
“We’re trying to help grow the commodity, grow the industry here in Kentucky, so having that type of research come out just helps support what we’re doing,” Duvall said. “That’s what our association is all about—getting the word out there. There’re several of us who just found out in the last four or five years that it’s a possibility in Kentucky.”
Duvall said association membership has grown from more than a dozen participants to more than 40 in just two years.
“But there’re still lots of people I keep finding who are making maple syrup. They’re just not members yet,” he said.
For those who want to learn more about tapping into their land’s potential, the association is holding Kentucky Maple Syrup 101 workshops at county Extension offices across the Commonwealth throughout October.
“If you want to get started, you can go and learn from somebody who has experience,” Duvall said.
For more in-depth education, KMSA is having its annual Kentucky Maple School on Nov. 1 at the Clark County Extension Office in Winchester.
Registration and information for both opportunities can be found on the association’s website, kymaplesyrup.com.
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One of the first things interested landowners will discover is when their maple trees can be tapped. The key is weather: Freezing temperatures overnight pull the sap up the tree via osmotic pressure. Then, as temperatures climb above freezing during the day, the sap flows down to be captured, drawn and collected in either good old-fashioned buckets or a more elaborate piping system connecting multiple trees across the property.
In Kentucky, that optimal season is about six to eight weeks in December and January.
“It depends,” Duvall said. “The colder the better … We try to find which six to eight weeks during the winter you’re going to have the most days in a row” of freezing and thawing.
Once the sap is collected, the next step is to boil it down to evaporate the water content, caramelizing the remaining sugars into the familiar golden-brown syrup. While sugar content varies among trees, typically 43 gallons of sap can be reduced to 1 gallon of syrup, per KMSA.
In addition to KMSA’s education initiatives, the organization collaborates with UK’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources on its comprehensive maple syrup website. The site, ky-maplesyrup.ca.uky.edu, features a list of FAQs, study guides and even budget templates from the Kentucky Center for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Ochuodho said these guides for landowners and potential producers are tangible tools born from the maple syrup study’s economic impact discoveries.
“Somebody’s producing so much, and he wants to expand his capacity, so what will he need, and how much would that cost him?” Ochuodho said. An individual landowner can look at the guide on his screen and say, "‘I have how many trees here? OK, so how much do I need to invest here? OK, if I put in this much, I need this, and I need this, and I need this. So, what does that mean in terms of the returns that I can get?’”
For Duvall and those who have already discovered the benefits of maple syrup production, the returns go beyond financial gain.
“Maple syrup has been around for a long time. People just forgot about it, stopped making it around here,” Duvall said. “We’re trying to help bring it back—bring back that art of making maple syrup. I just started in 2020, and once you kind of get bitten by that sugar bug, you just want to keep doing more and more and more.”