This is a remarkable finding about maple syrup production. Instead of having to tap fully grown forests of sugar maples to acquire sap, botanists discovered you can chop the top off a sapling, tap directly into the trunk, and extract sap using a vacuum. Now instead of dealing with sprawling forests to make syrup, these saplings can be planted in dense plantations. The discovery was prompted by a simple question: is sap generated from the top of the tree or the bottom. I was going to headline with the photo of their new sap extraction mechanism, but it is too sad. I’ll take a maple syrup themed picture at some point. Also looking for their actual paper.
categories:
- read
tags:
- botany
- nature
- science