In this episode, Aaron interviews two guests: Catherine Belisle, PhD, the new food scientist at the Cornell Maple Program, and Christian Mercado Acevedo, MFS, a Cornell Food Science graduate and food and beverage consultant. Together, they developed a new maple product this year called Mappleau, an after-dinner drink who's name and production methods were inspired by Pommeau. 

You can reach Christian at www.caldamentum.com

To access the free Mappleau production fact sheets, visit the New Product Development webpage at www.cornellmaple.com (https://blogs.cornell.edu/cornellmaple/product-development-and-research/)

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud, Funk and Flash, both by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

In this episode, Aaron and Adam answer some of the most frequently asked questions they receive from both maple producers and maple consumers. This is the first Q&A style episode of the series, and we intend to produce more. To have your question featured on the show, visit the Sweet Talk webpage at CornellMaple.com (https://blogs.cornell.edu/cornellmaple/sweettalk/).

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

This month, Aaron Wightman interviews two guests with perspectives on urban sugaring opportunities. First is Kristina Ferrare, the Forestry Program Specialist at Cornell Cooperative Extension - Onondaga County, based in Syracuse, NY. After learning about the educator's perspective on urban sugaring, Aaron seeks out a practitioner in a suburban neighborhood in Ithaca, NY. Greg Albrecht is the founder of Roat Street Sugarworks, a unique community sugaring operation with participation across his neighborhood.

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud, Funk and Flash, both by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

This month, Adam Wild interviews Mark Isselhardt, Maple Specialist at the University of Vermont Extension. Mark has a lot of experience tasting and assessing maple syrup from his time educating maple producers at grading schools, judging syrups at maple contests, and researching impacts to syrup quality at the Proctor Maple Research Center. We hope his insight will help all you sugarmakers improve upon your syrup quality this maple season.

https://www.uvm.edu/extension/agriculture/maple

Read more about the research on "metabolism" off-flavor: https://mapleresearch.org/search/?_sf_s=metabolism

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud, Funk and Flash, both by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

This month, Aaron Wightman interviews two burgeoning young sugarmakers of the maple industry's next generation - Damian Hill of Shaver-Hill Maple Farm in Harpersfield, NY, and Andrea Caluori of Little Mouse Farm & Studio in Ashfield, MA. Damian grew up in a maple producing family and is the third generation of Hills to continue growing the business. Andrea is a first-generation farmer and an artist who grew up in the Bronx and found her way to the welcoming world of the maple industry. While Shaver-Hill Farm specializes in maple - both in food products and as an equipment dealer - Little Mouse Farm is a small, but highly diversified new business.

Andrea is a graduate of the Cornell Maple Program's Maple Camp - a four-day, immersive program designed to provide hands-on learning and expert advice to both complete beginners and those looking to improve their operations.

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud, Funk and Flash, both by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

This month, Adam Wild interviews Abby van den Berg, a tree physiologist and maple researcher at the University of Vermont - Proctor Maple Research Center. An expert on the effects of maple sugaring on the health and growth of maple trees, Abby recently conducted research on how "early" tapping affects our trees in the long run. Is it worth it to tap earlier than your usual tapping date? Or will some extra sap not be enough to outweigh the extra damage done to the trees? What does "early" even mean for different regions in a changing climate? Adam asks these questions and gets some insights that will help the Cornell Maple Program interpret their own early tapping research, and compare their data across different regional climates.

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud, Funk and Flash, both by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

This month, Aaron Wightman interviews three agroforestry, or "forest farming", specialists who double as educators with Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE). These three guests have been instrumental in the formation of a statewide agroforestry work team that connects CCE educators and researchers with the goal of improving the availability of resources to those interested in adopting some of these practices.

Brett Chedzoy is a Regional Extension forester who works for CCE of Schuyler County, and the forest manager of the Cornell Arnot Teaching and Research Forest. In addition, Brett practices silvopasturing at his family farm in Watkins Glen.

Steve Gabriel works with the Cornell Small Farms Program where he focuses on specialty mushroom production and agroforestry research and extension projects. He also runs Wellspring Forest Farm & School with his family in Trumansburg where they harvest maple and mushrooms and raise ducks and sheep in diverse habitats.

Tracey Testo is a program coordinator at the Cooperative Extension office in Columbia and Greene counties where she focuses on agriculture and natural resource issues. She is experienced with American Ginseng and forest mushroom production.

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud, Funk and Flash, both by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

This month, co-directors of the Cornell Maple Program, Aaron Wightman and Adam Wild, reflect on the past season of maple tubing and taphole longevity research. They give background information on the recent history of this type of research conducted by the program and then shed light on the newest findings that could help solve the problems facing 3/16" tubing systems.

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

In this follow-up episode, Adam Wild interviews Dr. Jonathan Tremblay, an associate professor of kinesiology and human kinetics (AKA exercise science) at the University of Montreal. He is the first to research the effects of maple in "clinical trials", which, as Dr. Seeram explained, are research experiments done with human subjects. This type of research is crucial to understanding the benefits and unique properties of maple and proving how these components affect the human body. However, human clinical trials come with many challenges, as Dr. Tremblay explains. 

Dr. Tremblay's research focuses on maple as a fuel source for athletes. He explains how the research is conducted and what it takes to compare how maple is used by the human body during exercise, against commercial sports drinks. Human health research is not an easy undertaking, but but having scientific research to back-up health claims will greatly benefit the maple industry. 

You can find his maple-related research at: MapleScience.org/Jonathan-Tremblay

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

This episode, Adam Wild interviews Dr. Navindra Seeram, a natural product chemist at the University of Rhode Island whose research focuses on maple and human health benefits. His research has identified unique polyphenols to maple, and resulted in a nutraceutical maple syrup extract (MSX).

Dr. Seeram addresses myths and anecdotes about maple's beneficial health effects that have not been proven by science. He also goes into detail on the benefits that have been backed up by his lab group's research findings, and what it takes to get that evidence. Human health research is not an easy undertaking, but understanding maple's role as a functional food will greatly benefit the maple industry. Additionally, Dr. Seeram discusses other parts of the maple tree that could potentially be utilized for human consumption and other products.

Find his research and so much more at: URI.edu/maple

Episode produced by Ailis Clyne

Music - Long and Low Cloud, Highway 430, both by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)