Maple sugaring in L'Assomption, Quebec
- Sap starts
- Mar 10
- producers' record
- Season ends
- Apr 15
- about 5 weeks
- Sap days / season
- 25.2
- 1991–2025 average
- Taps, 2021
- 40,247
- #60 of 61 in QC
Sap-flow outlook at Repentigny right now
Full Quebec forecast →Forecast for Repentigny, QC
Updated Oct 7, 11:30 AM EDT
Off-season for now. Sap needs freezing nights, and none are in sight. L'Assomption's season usually opens around March 10, which is 154 days away.
No freeze-thaw days in the forecast
freeze thaw 0 °C
- ThuOct 811° / 16°No refreeze forecast
- FriOct 98° / 14°No refreeze forecast
- SatOct 102° / 14°No refreeze forecast
- SunOct 117° / 23°No refreeze forecast
- MonOct 1212° / 17°No refreeze forecast
- TueOct 1310° / 14°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 Repentigny
Year-to-year spread
- Opening signal
- Median Mar 17; the middle half of seasons fell between Mar 12 and Mar 21. Earliest Mar 2 (2010), latest Apr 8 (1998).
- Closing signal
- Median Apr 16; middle half between Apr 11 and Apr 18. Earliest Mar 30 (2010), latest Apr 25 (2003).
- Sap days by month
- Dec14%Jan8%Feb12%Mar36%Apr30%May1%
35 seasons of sap weather
L'Assomption seasons, 1991–2025
Maple production
L'Assomption 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 10 in L'Assomption, with 40,247 taps; in 2016, 15 farms and 42,115 taps. Among Quebec's 61 census divisions with a published tap count, L'Assomption ranks 60th, and 78th of the 94 in this atlas.
Over the five years the farm count changed −33% and taps −4%. 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 | 10 | 40,247E |
| 2016 | 15 | 42,115 |
- E Statistics Canada quality grade: use with caution.
A separate, newer source
PPAQ regional fact sheet, 2026
The Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec (PPAQ) publish a fact sheet for each sugaring region, with figures for every MRC. These are from the 2026 Lanaudière sheet. They count enterprises registered under the joint marketing plan, by where the sugarbush is; the census above counts 2021 farms by their main location. The two sit side by side here and are never added together.
- Enterprises
- 8
- under the joint marketing plan
- Taps
- 50,927
- as printed
- Annual production
- 241,394 lb
- estimate, pounds of syrup
- Value
- $808,669
- Canadian dollars
Taps by forest ownership
Private forest 100%Public forest 0%
- Annual production is PPAQ's estimate (Groupe AGÉCO's yield estimate applied to the taps), not a measured harvest. Lanaudière sheet (PDF, French)
Nearby
Neighboring maple divisions
16 km · Terrebonne
Les Moulins
Sap ~Mar 9 – Apr 15 · 7 farms
20 km · Lavaltrie
D'Autray
Sap ~Mar 10 – Apr 15 · 42 farms
20 km · Sainte-Julie
Marguerite-D'Youville
Sap ~Mar 9 – Apr 14 · 54,977 taps
25 km · Longueuil
Longueuil
Sap ~Mar 8 – Apr 14 · 13 farms
27 km · Saint-Lin–Laurentides
Montcalm
Sap ~Mar 13 – Apr 18 · 450,184 taps
27 km · Laval
Laval
Sap ~Mar 8 – Apr 13 · 7 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 Repentigny, the division's most populous municipality in the 2021 Census; the cell sits at 10 m (33 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. In Quebec it reproduces the pattern between regions in producers' reported seasons (Houle et al. 2015), and the typical dates are anchored to that record. Production figures are copied from Statistics Canada as published; the PPAQ figures, from its 2026 regional fact sheet, are shown separately. Full method, the Daymet checks and the Quebec validation → Run a sugarhouse here? Put this sap forecast on your own website →
Sources · 9
- 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.Fiche région 2026 : Lanaudière · Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec
- 4.Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 4 R1 · ORNL DAAC
- 5.Impacts of climate change on the timing of the production season of maple syrup in eastern Canada (PLOS ONE 10(12): e0144844, 2015) · Houle et al.
- 6.Sap flow in sugar maple: timing and weather drivers (Frontiers in Agronomy, 2025) · de Lima Santos et al.
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- 7.2021 Census cartographic boundary files (census divisions, population centres) · Statistics Canada
- 8.Population and dwelling counts, 2021 Census (Tables 98-10-0002-01 and 98-10-0011-01) · Statistics Canada
- 9.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.
- Québec MRC figures: Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec, Fiches région 2026 (production estimates from Groupe AGÉCO).
FAQ
L'Assomption sugaring questions
- When should I tap maple trees in L'Assomption, Quebec?
- In a typical year the sap starts running around March 10 near Repentigny and the season winds down around April 15. 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 Mar 2 and as late as Apr 8.
- How much maple syrup does L'Assomption produce?
- Statistics Canada doesn't publish syrup volume by census division. Its 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 10 farms reporting 40,247 maple taps in L'Assomption, number 60 of 61 Quebec divisions with a published count. Separately, the PPAQ's 2026 fact sheet for the Lanaudière region estimates annual production at 241,394 lb of syrup from 50,927 taps.
- How many sap days does L'Assomption get in a season?
- On average 25.2 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Repentigny, of which about 10.5 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 1999 (38 sap days); the leanest was 2015 (11).
- Where do these dates come from?
- From 35 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Repentigny (Daymet 1-km grid), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast. In Quebec they are anchored to producers' reported season in the region (Houle et al. 2015, 1999–2011). They describe a typical year at one point in the division; your sugarbush, slope and elevation can shift them by days.


