Maple sugaring in Peel, Ontario
- Sap starts
- Mar 4
- weather estimate
- Season ends
- Apr 4
- about 4 weeks
- Sap days / season
- 28.3
- 1991–2025 average
- Taps, 2021
- withheld
- by Statistics Canada
Sap-flow outlook at Mississauga right now
Full Ontario forecast →Forecast for Mississauga, ON
Updated Oct 7, 11:00 AM EDT
Off-season for now. Sap needs freezing nights, and none are in sight. Peel's season usually opens around March 4, which is 148 days away.
No freeze-thaw days in the forecast
freeze thaw 0 °C
- ThuOct 810° / 19°No refreeze forecast
- FriOct 95° / 19°No refreeze forecast
- SatOct 103° / 22°No refreeze forecast
- SunOct 1117° / 25°No refreeze forecast
- MonOct 1212° / 19°No refreeze forecast
- TueOct 1312° / 16°No refreeze forecast
Data: Environment and Climate Change Canada. Verdicts use freeze-thaw thresholds from maple field research; your woods may run a little differently.
When the sap runs
The sugaring calendar at Mississauga
Year-to-year spread
- Opening signal
- Median Mar 4; the middle half of seasons fell between Feb 23 and Mar 13. Earliest Feb 6 (2024), latest Apr 1 (2013).
- Closing signal
- Median Apr 4; middle half between Mar 27 and Apr 8. Earliest Mar 11 (2012), latest Apr 21 (2018).
- Sap days by month
- Dec20%Jan11%Feb19%Mar33%Apr17%May1%
35 seasons of sap weather
Peel seasons, 1991–2025
Maple production
Peel in the Census of Agriculture
Statistics Canada counts the farms that report maple taps in its Census of Agriculture every five years. In 2021 it counted 15 in Peel; in 2016, 11 farms and 1,045 taps.
Over the five years the farm count changed +36%. Statistics Canada cautions that 2021 and 2016 are not strictly comparable: the census-farm definition changed in 2021, and farms were assigned to their main location more strictly.
Statistics Canada doesn't publish syrup volume by census division, so the Canadian pages show farms and taps, not gallons or litres.
| Census year | Farms reporting taps | Taps |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 15 | withheld by Statistics Canada |
| 2016 | 11 | 1,045 |
- "Withheld by Statistics Canada": Statistics Canada suppressed the value as too unreliable to publish (F). The farm count is still published.
Nearby
Neighboring maple divisions
14 km · Oakville
Halton
Sap ~Feb 28 – Mar 28 · 6,496 taps
40 km · Hamilton
Hamilton
Sap ~Mar 1 – Mar 30 · 18 farms
45 km · Markham
York
Sap ~Mar 6 – Apr 6 · 6,247 taps
48 km · Guelph
Wellington
Sap ~Mar 13 – Apr 12 · 167,714 taps
52 km · Orangeville
Dufferin
Sap ~Mar 16 – Apr 17 · 30 farms
56 km · St. Catharines
Niagara
Sap ~Feb 27 – Mar 29 · 14 farms
About these numbers
The season dates are estimated from 35 seasons of daily high and low temperatures for the Daymet 1-km grid cell at Mississauga, the division's most populous municipality in the 2021 Census; the cell sits at 163 m (535 ft). Each day is scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast: a sap day is an overnight low under −1 °C (30.2 °F) followed by an afternoon high over +3 °C (37.4 °F). A season's closing signal is the last sap day before accumulated warmth reaches a threshold, and the opening signal sits 35 days before that, never earlier than the first real freeze-thaw week. The rule was calibrated on 117 state-seasons of USDA-reported dates in the US and is applied here unchanged. Ontario has no official season record, so the typical dates are a weather estimate. Production figures are copied from Statistics Canada as published. Full method, the Daymet checks and the Quebec validation → Run a sugarhouse here? Put this sap forecast on your own website →
Sources · 7
- 1.Maple taps, Census of Agriculture, 2021 (Table 32-10-0362-01) · Statistics Canada
- 2.Maple taps, Census of Agriculture, 2011 and 2016 (Table 32-10-0423-01) · Statistics Canada
- 3.Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 4 R1 · ORNL DAAC
- 4.Sap flow in sugar maple: timing and weather drivers (Frontiers in Agronomy, 2025) · de Lima Santos et al.
- 5.2021 Census cartographic boundary files (census divisions, population centres) · Statistics Canada
- 6.Population and dwelling counts, 2021 Census (Tables 98-10-0002-01 and 98-10-0011-01) · Statistics Canada
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- 7.GeoNames geographical database (CA) · GeoNames
Licences and attribution
- Adapted from Statistics Canada, Census of Agriculture 2021 and 2016 (Tables 32-10-0362-01 and 32-10-0423-01), 2021 Census population and dwelling counts (Tables 98-10-0002-01 and 98-10-0011-01) and 2021 Census cartographic boundary files. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
- Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
- Thornton, M.M., R. Shrestha, Y. Wei, P.E. Thornton, S-C. Kao, and B.E. Wilson. 2022. Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 4 R1. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2129
- Place coordinates: GeoNames (geonames.org), CC BY 4.0.
FAQ
Peel sugaring questions
- When should I tap maple trees in Peel, Ontario?
- In a typical year the sap starts running around March 4 near Mississauga and the season winds down around April 4. Have your taps in a day or two before the first forecast string of nights below −1 °C and days above +3 °C. In the past 35 seasons the weather signal came as early as Feb 6 and as late as Apr 1.
- How much maple syrup does Peel produce?
- Statistics Canada doesn't publish syrup volume by census division. Its 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 15 farms reporting maple taps in Peel; the tap count was withheld by Statistics Canada.
- How many sap days does Peel get in a season?
- On average 28.3 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Mississauga, of which about 14.1 are textbook days with a night between about −7 and −2 °C and a day between 4 and 9 °C. The best season since 1991 was 2018 (40 sap days); the leanest was 2010 (16).
- Where do these dates come from?
- From 35 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Mississauga (Daymet 1-km grid), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast. Ontario has no official season record, so they are a weather estimate. They describe a typical year at one point in the division; your sugarbush, slope and elevation can shift them by days.


