R-LIL Maple Syrup

On Wednesday October 10th the LEAF program visited R-LiL Maple Syrup. R-LiL Maple Syrup is owned by Ron and Lillian Grub. Their sugar bush is 14 acres of which 12 are in production. The main trees in the sugar bush are sugar maple but there are also ash, black cherry, beech, aspin, and some soft maple. They produce 1400 liters of syrup per year. They sell locally to stores as well as to family and friends. They also have a maple syrup open house in April. The Norwell LEAF program was joined by MP John Nater, Minto mayor George Bridge, Norwell principal Paul Richard, and Danielle Schill the LEAF program community contact.  We all took a tour of the sugar bush and then did a forest mapping assignment. Finally, we got to taste the syrup and eat Danish pancakes. (10 out of 10!). The most important thing we learned was to have diversity on your farm like the diversity in trees we saw in the sugar bush. Diversity allows for more disease resistant crops and allows for crops to survive changing weather conditions like drought. Diversity build more long term sustainability into any farm. My favourite thing about the trip was the maple syrup taste test because it was delicious. The LEAF program would like to thank Ron and Lillian Grub for having our class for the day and teaching us about their sugar bush. We would also like to thank all of our special guests for helping us officially launch the LEAF program.