The Journal Gazette, 600 W. Main St., Fort Wayne IN

TERRE HAUTE – Indiana’s recent stretch of mild winter weather has been a welcome break from the cold for most Hoosiers, but not for the state’s maple syrup makers.

The warm conditions have slowed the flow of sap from maple trees tapped at two Vigo County parks as part of a February ritual to collect sap to be cooked into maple syrup for an annual fundraising breakfast.

County parks superintendent Keith Ruble said he hopes cold weather returns soon so that his crews can extract more sap from trees at Fowler Park and nearby Prairie Creek Park.

“This year is not starting out great. It has been too hot,” he said.

Ruble said that to make sap flow it takes a freeze and thaw fluctuation in temperatures, meaning below freezing nights and near 40-degree days.

But mild weather slows the flowing sap that’s later boiled down into rich syrup.

Maple syrup is the biggest part of the department’s annual breakfast, where bottles of the sweet natural confection will be sold.

The 23rd maple syrup, pancake, sausage breakfast at the Fowler Park Pioneer Village log barn is set for this weekend.

Ruble joined seven other park workers Friday in using gasoline-powered drills to make tap holes in the maple trees in a hollow near Prairie Creek Park.

Then, they spread out new blue plastic sap-collection lines that eventually attach to a much larger black line.

Ruble said nearly seven miles of the blue line and about a mile of the main black line are used to collect sugar water, or sap, from the trees, pulled through the lines by a vacuum pump.

The park workers were making about 1,500 taps on about 1,000 trees. The site can handle up to 3,000 taps, but an evaporator, used to boil down the sap, can handle only a maximum of 1,800, Ruble said.

The sap is eventually boiled to remove water and produce maple syrup at Prairie Creek Park’s sugar camp in southern Vigo County.

“The sooner you get sap boiled, the better the quality. ... A fancy light amber syrup looks like a glass of water with just a couple of drops of oil in it,” Ruble said.

Last year, the department made 1,303 taps, producing 162 gallons of maple syrup. One of the best years was in 1988, when 412 gallons of maple syrup was produced from 1,500 taps. The Park Department has syrup production records dating to 1978.

But some years produce little syrup, such as 2004, when just 33 gallons were made.

However, the year before produced 212 gallons, which helped keep the department supplied for 2004.

That was not the case in 2000, when just 55 gallons were made, forcing the department for the first time to buy syrup in Michigan.