NORWICH – While the traditional maple syrup season is still a few weeks off, the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chenango County is preparing local agriculturists for maple syrup production by offering a Maple Syrup for Beginners Workshop and Pancake Dinner tonight in Sherburne.

NYS Maple Extension Specialist Steve Childs will be leading the workshop, teaching beginners the fundamentals of maple syrup production including tree identification, collecting sap with buckets or tubing, boiling the sap, energy considerations, when it’s syrup, filtering and canning syrup and what can be done with vacuum and reverse osmosis.

“This is something that we’ve offered over the years,” said event coordinator Rebecca Hargrave. “There’s a greater demand in New York than what it provides, so often we import,” she said of maple syrup market. “A lot of local people are interested in it and a fair amount of money can be made.”

According to Hargrave, this is the perfect opportunity for landowners to take advantage and make extra income from their woodlot – something thousands of New York State residents already do, making us the second largest maple syrup production state in the country behind Vermont. Of the nearly 50 maple syrup producers in Chenango County alone, the average maple syrup producer can have anywhere between a few dozen to a several thousand taps for syrup production and produce thousands of gallons of syrup annually.