Ohio Maple Days sets new record for attendance

By EVELYN LONG -

An atten­dance of 86 at the Ohio Maple Days Work­shop held at the Lutheran Memo­r­ial Camp, Ful­ton, on Jan­u­ary 24, set a record, accord­ing to officials.

The goal of this work­shop, the first of three held that week­end, was to take a look at improv­ing qual­ity in maple prod­ucts and how to suc­cess­fully mar­ket those prod­ucts once they are produced.

Fea­tured speaker this year, Ms. Kathryn Hop­kins, Exten­sion Maple Spe­cial­ist for the Uni­ver­sity of Miami, dis­cussed “Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Fun­gal Con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in Maple Syrup”, “Can­ning Pro­to­cols, What Works?” and “Visual Dis­plays and Marketing.”

Also speak­ing was Nate Bis­sell, “Sug­ar­mak­ing, Money Mak­ing or Both?”

Dr. Gary Gra­ham, from the Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion, Holmes County, closed out the pro­gram with “Pro­duc­tion Sta­tis­tics,” Do the Num­bers Really Count?” He revealed a look at maple syrup pro­duc­tion sta­tis­tics in Ohio where his research cov­ered agri­cul­tural cen­sus pro­duc­tion records from 1840 to 2012.

Eddie Lou Meimer, who with her hus­band, John and son, Jim, own Pleiades Farms, Mount Gilead, said that Ohio’s pro­duc­tion of 100,000 gal­lons of maple syrup in 2012 made Ohio the fourth largest pro­ducer of maple syrup in the nation.

She also said that Jim had tapped the trees two nights this year on their 120 wooded acres and gained close to 200 gal­lons thus far. She noted that because of the unusu­ally warm win­ter in 2012 the sea­son began with tap­ping on Jan­u­ary 23 and it was over March 12.

The Meimers were one of two county res­i­dents who had booths at the workshop.

The other was the Erl­sten Broth­ers, Johnsville, who offer maple sug­ar­ing equip­ment and sup­ples. They also buy bulk syrup.

Meimer noted “We saw more young farm­ers this year (at the work­shop). “We’re see­ing an increase with more young peo­ple doing tap­ping. This mod­ern tech­nol­ogy — high pres­sure vac­uum — peo­ple can get to areas they couldn’t get to before.”

Meimer said Pleiades Farms pro­vides all the maple syrup for the North Star Cafes in Coluim­bus, and they sup­ply maple syrup to Raisin Rack in West­er­ville. Their prod­uct can also be found in small bou­tiques such as Gar­dens and Gifts at Mount Gilead. They also bring maple syrup to two Farmer’s Mar­kets, West­er­ville and Wor­thing­ton in the sum­mer and Worthington’s Sat­ur­day morn­ing indoor mar­ket in the winter.

They pro­vided the maple syrup for the lun­cheon, pan­cakes and sausage, served at the work­shop at LMC.

Dr. Gra­ham and the Meimers remind peo­ple of the Ohio Maple Mad­ness Dri­ving Tour in March, 2013. The tour takes place March 9–10 and March 16–17 and will be the biggest tour yet. More infor­ma­tion can be found on the web site ohiomaple.org

It will also be described in the Feb­ru­ary issue of Mid­West Living.

The three day work­shop con­cluded with a meet­ing at The Men­non­ite Chris­t­ian Assem­bly Church, Fred­er­icks­burg, Wayne County on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 25 and on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 26, the work­shop was held at Joe’s Win­dow Shop, Bur­ton in Geauga County. There was also a trade show at the last location.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Feb 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.