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What We Did
Overseas experts have long thought that large-scale maple sap production could never occur in New Zealand because the weather is too mild. UC academics led by Dr Matt Watson adopted the so-called "plantation method" to establish a test plantation of maple saplings to determine the viability of producing maple syrup in NZ. A new production method has cut the time required between planting and the first possible harvest from 25 years to as little as three years.
"The projections are that you can get 3500 litres of syrup per hectare and that equates at a wholesale price of $5 per litre of around $17,000 per hectare," says Matthew Watson. "The yield that you can get per hectare is substantially higher than what you get from the traditional forestry method, and it happens at a time of year when there is very little else going on in terms of agricultural or horticultural work in New Zealand."
Watson and his PhD student Tenaya were the first people in the world to 3D image the inside of a live maple trunk and they're now in talks with several landowners interested in becoming New Zealand's first maple syrup producer.
Who Was Involved
- Maple View Estate, Garth Capper, and Elizabeth Cederwall - landowner in Hanmer Springs, where test plantation is situated.
- Matthew Rennie, ME student sponsored sponsored by the NZ Product Accelerator, and co-supervised with Justin Morgenroth Tenaya Driller (PhD student studying sap flow mechanisms in trees using advanced 3D imaging techniques)
- Simon Reid (ME student who did work understanding freeze thaw cycles in NZ’s milder climate for his Honours project last year)
- Nic Weaver and Geoff Wilkins (Summer Research Scholar and Honours student who determined the most energy efficient way to transform sap into syrup).
- Honours level design team (2017) who looked at the economic viability of establishing a maple syrup industry in NZ.
- Danielle Gandela (Honours 2016) – who determined the location of NZ’s most viable regions for establishing a maple plantation.
Why It Matters
Establishing a maple syrup industry in NZ represents a new economic opportunity for landowners, especially in colder parts of the country.
Learn More
- Reid, S., Driller, T., & Watson, M. (2020). A two-dimensional heat transfer model for predicting freeze-thaw events in sugar maple trees. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 294, 108139.
- Weaver, N. J., Wilkin, G. S., Morison, K. R., & Watson, M. J. (2020). Minimizing the energy requirements for the production of maple syrup. Journal of Food Engineering, 273, 109823.
- Driller, T., Gandela, D., & Watson, M. (2018). Feasibility of producing maple syrup in New Zealand. Chemeca 2018, 34. www.search.informit.com.au
- www.stuff.co.nz/science/106999983/nz-maple-syrup-industry-possible-and-promising
