Forest Watch conducts basic and applied research on New England forest ecosystems. Research data is collected by teachers & students (gr. K-12), sampled from trees in their study plot.

Study Species
  • White Pine
  • Sugar Maple

The Forest Watch program is funded by the New Hampshire Space Grant Consortium, located at Univ. of New Hampshire Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space.

Who we are... Forest Watch staff...
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Sugar Maple Research
  The Science: Sap Production

sap door hunter farm

   At the Hunter Farm in Tuftonboro, NH, old records of daily sap collections, by the barrel, and daily production of maple syrup, by the gallon, are recorded on the sap house door. Such records are helping Maple Watch to see if there is any change in the sap-to-syrup ratio. In the chart, Hunter records show that it used to take 30 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. In the last decade, sugarmakers have needed as much as 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Our trees are less sweet than they used to be. Maple Watch aims to find out why!
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