New Jersey may be known for Tony Soprano, Turnpike tolls, and chemical plants. Now a group of researchers is hoping to add maple syrup to the list. Ryan Hegarty, assistant director of Stockton University’s Maple Project, toiches a tap he just placed into a red maple tree at the university’s Galloway, N.J. campus on Feb. 21, 2024.
“You should never tell a New Jerseyan, ‘It can’t be done,’ because we live for the challenge,” said Judith Vogel, a mathematics professor and director of the Stockton Maple Project. “There were a lot of obstacles to be overcome in bringing maple syrup production to south Jersey, but the work has been fun, and the results have been very sweet.”
The general rule of thumb is that it takes about 40 gallons of sap from sugar maples of the Vermont variety to make one gallon of syrup, Hegarty said. For red maples, you need at least 60 gallons of sap because more water needs to be removed in the process of making syrup. But years of perseverance, and a growing desire for locally produced food, helped carve out a small niche for New Jersey maple syrup.
“You need below-freezing nights, then you need above-freezing daytime temperatures” to ensure a good flow of sap, Hegarty said.