Debby Funk peered inside a 4-gallon metal bucket, one of 3,000 suspended from taps in the maple trees at Funks Grove, and looked pleased, even though the sap was dripping slower than she would have liked.
The clear liquid, like water but vaguely sweet, will never pour from the tree. But on a warmer day the drip quickens and the bucket fills in 10 to 12 hours.
Debby and Mike Funk’s success depends on having the right temperatures. But this sugaring season, now running at full bore, carries added pressure. Concerned about last year’s drought in the late spring, summer and fall, the Funks are taking a conservative approach to tapping as they wait to gauge the impact of the dry weather on their thousands of trees.
Located along historic Route 66 some 15 miles south of Bloomington, Funks Grove is the largest commercial maple syrup operation in Illinois. Smaller sites are scattered throughout the state, with educational demonstrations at forest preserves like Kline Creek Farm in West Chicago, Fullersburg Woods in Oak Brook and Ryerson Conservation Area in Riverwoods.
In a good year, the Funks’ season lasts four to six weeks, ending when the trees bud and the sap turns bitter, usually by mid-March. But with the recent cooler weather, Mike Funk expects to collect sap through the month.
“Temperatures in the 40s by day and the 20s by night. That’s all we ask for. Is that too much?” asked Debby.
With the help of seasonal employees and family members, the Funks make an average of 1,800 gallons of syrup a year, collecting sap from 6,000 taps on 500 acres of hardwood maples — a cross between a sugar maple and a black maple. Last year they made 2,500 gallons of syrup in just two weeks before the unseasonal warm spell abruptly ended things.
Many of the trees are a stone’s throw from I-55, in virgin timber claimed by Mike Funk’s ancestors in 1824.
They spell the word “sirup” with an “i” for their literature and labels to honor the wishes of Hazel Funk Holmes, who in the 1920s put the family timber and farmland into a trust to protect it and ensure future generations would continue the tradition. “Sirup” was the preferred spelling by Webster at that time, she believed.
Regardless of spelling, it’s liquid gold, and Mike Funk, 59, who also plants 1,000 acres in corn and soybeans, recognizes that success is highly dependent on moisture. Last summer’s drought had him worrying not only about this year’s sap harvest, but about the future of his trees — some more than 120 years old.
Should he tap or not?
He pitched the question to maple specialist Stephen Childs at Cornell University.
“When the drought is severe enough that the trees lose the leaves prior to September, there would be concern that the tree would not have had full opportunity to store a full load of sugar and starch,” Childs said.
“It usually takes more than one year of stress to see much difference in the sap sugar level.”
The Funks’ trees retained their leaves until the normal autumn time, so they proceeded to tap, but with caution.
Typically a tree has to be 14 inches in diameter (roughly 40 years old) to host one tap, Mike Funk said. When it grows another 6 inches, a second tap can be added, then a third.
This year, a tree that normally would host three taps was given two. Those that had two have only one.
Mike Funk also worries that the drought may cost him some trees over the next couple of years.
“When you lose a tree,” he said, “you have really lost something.”
Debby Funk said they lose a few maples every year due to age, wind and other weather factors.
“Corn and soybeans … can be replaced annually and can be insured,” she said. “It takes 40 years to replace a productive sugar maple tree, and there is no insurance on a maple crop.”
Eighty percent of the world’s maple syrup comes from Quebec, with U.S. production making up the other 20 percent, Childs said.
Global warming is a topic everywhere as experts report that warmer winters have cut the sugaring season by as much as 10 percent from 40 years ago.
The subject is keenly followed at Funks Grove, where a great deal of time and money has been put into this tradition and land and where family members have been making “sirup” since 1891. The process is simple, but time consuming.
Repeated 16-hour work days are common at peak production. And Debby Funk said it is not unusual for Mike to be up in the middle of the night wondering if the buckets are filling or overflowing.
Sap, they explained, is basically food for the tree, carrying sugar and minerals to the branches. During the winter it is stored in the roots, and as the weather turns warmer, the freezing-thawing cycle causes the sap to flow to the branches by day, then drop again at night.
The Funks drill a hole chest-high, 1.5 inches into the tree to insert the metal tap that catches only a small portion of the flowing sap.
The tap hole will heal in four to five weeks. Next year the tap will be placed about four to six inches away from the barely visible scar.
Traditionally, metal buckets are placed on each tap, but the Funks also use the modern method of attaching plastic tubes to the taps and running them from tree to tree. The visual effect resembles a giant, light blue spider web in the forest.
Vacuum pumps suction the sap through the lines into temporary holding tanks that lead to the sugarhouse.
There it’s filtered and pumped into a machine that removes much of the water. A large evaporator boils the water out of the sap until it becomes syrup.
Earlier in the season when the sap is sweeter, it takes 35 to 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, said Debby Funk.
“Toward the end it will take 50 to 75 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup,” she said. “The later syrup is darker in color, stronger in flavor, and often used for cooking.”
“Funks Grove Sirup” sells for $58 a gallon, the same price as last year, but up $57 from the first gallons sold in 1891.
In the Sirup Store, smaller quantities are available along with homemade maple candy and maple cream.
Most customers are local, but 20 percent of sales are now mail order and through their website, funkspuremaplesirup.com.
Mike Funk admitted maple sugaring requires a lot of work during a short amount of time.
But it’s sweet, he said, to make a natural product.
“We look forward to the season starting, and we look forward to it ending,” he said. “It’s a beautiful place, and you have to try to not let the work keep you from seeing the beauty of it.”
