Maple sugaring in Guernsey County, Ohio
- Sap starts
- Feb 12
- typical year
- Season ends
- Mar 21
- about 5 weeks
- Sap days / season
- 46.7
- 1991–2026 average
- Taps, 2022
- 467
- #43 of 63 in OH
Sap-flow outlook at Cambridge right now
Full Ohio forecast →Forecast for Cambridge, OH
Updated Oct 6, 8:36 AM EDT
Off-season for now. Sap needs freezing nights, and none are in sight. Guernsey County's season usually opens around February 12, which is 129 days away.
No freeze-thaw days in the forecast
freeze thaw 32°F
- WedOct 743° / 74°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - ThuOct 852° / 72°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - FriOct 945° / 69°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - SatOct 1046° / 73°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - SunOct 1152° / 71°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - MonOct 1255° / 73°No refreeze forecast
Data: National Weather Service. Verdicts use freeze-thaw thresholds from maple field research; your woods may run a little differently.
When the sap runs
The sugaring calendar at Cambridge
Year-to-year spread
- Opening signal
- Median Feb 7; the middle half of seasons fell between Jan 25 and Feb 11. Earliest Jan 10 (2017), latest Mar 4 (2010).
- Closing signal
- Median Mar 11; middle half between Feb 25 and Mar 15. Earliest Feb 2 (2006), latest Mar 30 (2015).
- Sap days by month
- Dec24%Jan18%Feb23%Mar27%Apr8%May0%
36 seasons of sap weather
Guernsey County seasons, 1991–2026
Maple production
Guernsey County in the Census of Agriculture
USDA counts maple operations every five years. In Guernsey County the 2022 Census found 5 farms making syrup (+400% since 2017). That works out to about 0.16 gallons of syrup per tap in 2022. Among the 385 counties in this atlas, Guernsey County ranks 318 by taps.
| Census year | Farms | Taps | Gallons of syrup | Gal / tap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 5 | 467 | 73 | 0.16 |
| 2017 | 1 | withheld | withheld | — |
“Withheld” means USDA suppressed the figure to avoid disclosing data for individual operations; the farm count is still published.
Nearby
Neighboring maple counties
22 mi · Coshocton, OH
Coshocton County
Sap ~Feb 12 – Mar 20 · 2,366 taps
23 mi · Zanesville, OH
Muskingum County
Sap ~Feb 10 – Mar 19 · 596 taps
30 mi · McConnelsville, OH
Morgan County
Sap ~Feb 10 – Mar 18 · 740 taps
31 mi · Woodsfield, OH
Monroe County
Sap ~Feb 8 – Mar 17 · 1,970 taps
33 mi · New Philadelphia, OH
Tuscarawas County
Sap ~Feb 16 – Mar 24 · 4,168 taps
40 mi · Millersburg, OH
Holmes County
Sap ~Feb 18 – Mar 28 · 36,336 taps
About these numbers
The season dates are estimated from 36 seasons of daily high and low temperatures for the PRISM 4-km grid cell at Cambridge (856ft), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast: a sap day is an overnight low under 30.2 °F followed by an afternoon high over 37.4 °F. Each season's closing signal is the last sap day before accumulated warmth reaches a threshold, and the opening signal sits five weeks before that, never earlier than the first real freeze-thaw week. Tested against 117 state-seasons of USDA-reported dates, the rule lands within 5.5 days of the reported close and 6.6 days of the reported opening on average, and the typical dates shown here are scaled to Ohio's USDA record (8 years). Production figures are copied from the Census as published. Full method, calibration tables and the downloadable dataset →
Sources · 6
- 1.2022 Census of Agriculture, County Level Data — Ohio, Table 37: Maple Syrup, 2022 and 2017 · USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service
- 2.PRISM daily temperature grids (AN81d, 4 km), accessed 2026-10-05 · PRISM Group, Oregon State University, https://prism.oregonstate.edu
- 3.Applied Climate Information System (ACIS) web services · NOAA Regional Climate Centers
- 4.USDA NASS maple syrup reports — approximate average season opened and closed dates, 2011–2022 · USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (mirrored by the University of Vermont)
- 5.Sap flow in sugar maple: timing and weather drivers (Frontiers in Agronomy, 2025) · de Lima Santos et al.
- 6.GeoNames gazetteer (cities500), CC BY 4.0 · GeoNames
FAQ
Guernsey County sugaring questions
- When should I tap maple trees in Guernsey County, Ohio?
- In a typical year the sap starts running around February 12 near Cambridge and the season winds down around March 21. Have your taps in a day or two before the first forecast string of freezing nights and 40 °F days. In the past 36 seasons the weather signal came as early as Jan 10 and as late as Mar 4.
- How much maple syrup does Guernsey County produce?
- The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 5 maple operations in Guernsey County with 467 taps producing 73 gallons of syrup, ranking 43 of 63 Ohio's counties with published tap counts.
- How many sap days does Guernsey County get in a season?
- On average 46.7 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Cambridge, of which about 14.6 are textbook days with a night in the 20s and a day in the 40s. The best season since 1991 was 1999 (58 sap days); the leanest was 2003 (27).
- Where do these dates come from?
- From 36 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Cambridge (PRISM 4-km grid), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast, then calibrated against USDA's reported season dates for Ohio. They describe a typical year at one point in the county; your sugarbush, slope and elevation can shift them by days.


