#5 Sap Trees. Although maple sugaring is usually associated with eastern Canada, it is now possible to grow newly developed sugar maple varieties in sheltered locations throughout much of the Prairie Provinces. The major problem is that it takes up to 40 years for the sugar maples to become big enough to initiate sap production. The solution for many would-be sugar shackers is to harvest sap from alternative species.
Sap from Manitoba maples has about half the sugar content (about 3%) of sugar maples but there are millions of mature Manitoba maples throughout the western Canadian agricultural belt. Originally planted in the 1930s as part of the PFRA shelterbelt program, these trees are not only ready for tapping, but are in long straight rows close to county roads. The sap from Manitoba maples can be gathered and processed in exactly the same way as sugar maples.
Surprising as it may seem, but birch trees also produce a sugar sap that can be more valuable than maple sap. Since the sugar content of birch sap (1-2%) is much lower than maple sap, it is rarely boiled down into syrup but is actually bottled almost straight from the tree as a medicinal drink or distilled and combined with carbonated water to make “Birch Beer”. Birch beer is popular in the northeastern United States and in Atlantic Canada, while medicinal birch sap is a multi-million dollar industry in European Baltic countries.
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