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Quebec · maple atlas

Maple sugaring in Le Granit, Quebec

Le Granit is a regional county municipality (MRC) in Quebec. Statistics Canada's 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 519 farms reporting maple taps and 5,056,082 taps here, number 2 in Quebec. Around Lac-Mégantic, sap usually runs from March 19 to April 24. Here's the long-run pattern, 35 seasons of sap weather, and the outlook this week.
Too early to tapAbout 163 days until the usual start.
Sap starts
Mar 19
producers' record
Season ends
Apr 24
about 5 weeks
Sap days / season
36
1991–2025 average
Taps, 2021
5.1 million
#2 of 61 in QC

Sap-flow outlook at Lac-Mégantic right now

Full Quebec forecast →

Forecast for Lac-Mégantic, QC

Updated Oct 7, 5:00 AM EDT

Off-season for now. Sap needs freezing nights, and none are in sight. Le Granit's season usually opens around March 19, which is 163 days away.

No freeze-thaw days in the forecast

freeze thaw 0 °C

  1. ThuOct 8
    9° / 13°
    No refreeze forecast
  2. FriOct 9
    7° / 12°
    No refreeze forecast
  3. SatOct 10
    0° / 11°
    No refreeze forecast
  4. SunOct 11
    3° / 21°
    No refreeze forecast
  5. MonOct 12
    10° / 17°
    No refreeze forecast
  6. TueOct 13
    8° / 13°
    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 Lac-Mégantic

Freeze-thaw weather at Lac-Mégantic peaks in the weeks of Mar 16 to Apr 27, which hold about 56% of a season's sap days. April is the busiest month. Typical dates are anchored to producers' reported season in the region (Houle et al. 2015, 1999–2011): this division's weather signals, moved 6.8 days earlier for the opening and 1.4 for the closing, the average gap to that record. The spread and the year-by-year bars below are the unadjusted weather signal.
Typical season: Mar 19 – Apr 240246Week of Dec 1: 1.2 sap days on averageWeek of Dec 8: 1.0 sap days on averageWeek of Dec 15: 0.9 sap days on averageWeek of Dec 22: 0.8 sap days on averageWeek of Dec 29: 0.7 sap days on averageWeek of Jan 5: 0.5 sap days on averageWeek of Jan 12: 0.5 sap days on averageWeek of Jan 19: 0.4 sap days on averageWeek of Jan 26: 0.4 sap days on averageWeek of Feb 2: 0.7 sap days on averageWeek of Feb 9: 0.6 sap days on averageWeek of Feb 16: 1.1 sap days on averageWeek of Feb 23: 1.1 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 2: 1.3 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 9: 1.9 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 16: 2.2 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 23: 3.0 sap days on averageWeek of Mar 30: 3.3 sap days on averageWeek of Apr 6: 3.3 sap days on averageWeek of Apr 13: 3.3 sap days on averageWeek of Apr 20: 2.9 sap days on averageWeek of Apr 27: 2.2 sap days on averageWeek of May 4: 1.4 sap days on averageWeek of May 11: 0.9 sap days on averageWeek of May 18: 0.4 sap days on averageWeek of May 25: 0.2 sap days on averageDecJanFebMarAprMaytaps in ~Mar 19
Average number of freeze-thaw sap days in each week of the season at Lac-Mégantic, 1991–2025 (Daymet temperatures). A sap day is an overnight low under −1 °C (30.2 °F) followed by an afternoon high over +3 °C (37.4 °F). The shaded band is the typical season.

Year-to-year spread

Opening signal
Median Mar 26; the middle half of seasons fell between Mar 20 and Mar 29. Earliest Mar 6 (2010), latest Apr 6 (1997).
Closing signal
Median Apr 25; middle half between Apr 23 and May 1. Earliest Mar 29 (2010), latest May 9 (1997).
Sap days by month
Dec12%Jan6%Feb9%Mar27%Apr37%May10%

35 seasons of sap weather

Le Granit seasons, 1991–2025

The best sap year at Lac-Mégantic was 2016 with 52 freeze-thaw days; the leanest was 2015 with 24. Seasons that start early tend to end early too: the trees run on the swing between freezing nights and mild days, and heat ends it.
JanFebMarAprMaysap days20252025: Mar 22 – Apr 24, 32 sap days3220242024: Mar 20 – Apr 24, 44 sap days4420232023: Mar 22 – Apr 21, 38 sap days3820222022: Mar 27 – May 1, 46 sap days4620212021: Mar 17 – Apr 14, 26 sap days2620202020: Apr 3 – May 8, 51 sap days5120192019: Mar 31 – May 1, 39 sap days3920182018: Mar 29 – Apr 24, 36 sap days3620172017: Mar 24 – Apr 25, 31 sap days3120162016: Mar 31 – May 2, 52 sap days5220152015: Mar 30 – Apr 25, 24 sap days2420142014: Mar 29 – Apr 25, 28 sap days2820132013: Mar 25 – Apr 28, 38 sap days3820122012: Mar 12 – Apr 15, 37 sap days3720112011: Mar 28 – May 1, 30 sap days3020102010: Mar 6 – Mar 29, 28 sap days2820092009: Mar 22 – Apr 24, 40 sap days4020082008: Mar 20 – Apr 17, 28 sap days2820072007: Mar 29 – May 3, 37 sap days3720062006: Mar 16 – Apr 12, 38 sap days3820052005: Mar 26 – Apr 30, 40 sap days4020042004: Mar 27 – Apr 30, 36 sap days3620032003: Mar 26 – Apr 30, 28 sap days2820022002: Mar 15 – Apr 11, 32 sap days3220012001: Mar 29 – Apr 29, 31 sap days3120002000: Mar 19 – Apr 19, 38 sap days3819991999: Mar 28 – Apr 30, 45 sap days4519981998: Mar 17 – Apr 16, 31 sap days3119971997: Apr 6 – May 9, 40 sap days4019961996: Mar 28 – Apr 30, 35 sap days3519951995: Mar 26 – Apr 27, 43 sap days4319941994: Mar 31 – May 3, 37 sap days3719931993: Mar 22 – Apr 24, 33 sap days3319921992: Mar 31 – May 5, 35 sap days3519911991: Mar 20 – Apr 24, 34 sap days34
Each bar runs from the season's opening signal to its closing signal, estimated from daily Daymet temperatures at Lac-Mégantic. Dashed lines mark the typical dates. The right column counts freeze-thaw sap days from December through May.

Maple production

Le Granit 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 519 in Le Granit, with 5,056,082 taps; in 2016, 460 farms and 4,500,980 taps. Among Quebec's 61 census divisions with a published tap count, Le Granit ranks 2nd, and 2nd of the 94 in this atlas.

Over the five years the farm count changed +13% and taps +12%. 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.

Le Granit maple production, 2016 and 2021 (Statistics Canada, Census of Agriculture)
Census yearFarms reporting tapsTaps
20215195,056,082
20164604,500,980

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 Estrie 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
534
under the joint marketing plan
Taps
6.1 million
rounded, as printed
Annual production
25.2 million lb
estimate, pounds of syrup
Value
$84.5 million
Canadian dollars

Taps by forest ownership

Private forest 79%Public forest 21%

  • Figures in millions are rounded to a tenth, as PPAQ printed them.
  • Annual production is PPAQ's estimate (Groupe AGÉCO's yield estimate applied to the taps), not a measured harvest. Estrie sheet (PDF, French)

Nearby

Neighboring maple divisions

Distances are between reference towns; typical dates are each division's own estimate.

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 Lac-Mégantic, the division's most populous municipality in the 2021 Census; the cell sits at 400 m (1,312 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. 1.Maple taps, Census of Agriculture, 2021 (Table 32-10-0362-01) · Statistics Canada
  2. 2.Maple taps, Census of Agriculture, 2011 and 2016 (Table 32-10-0423-01) · Statistics Canada
  3. 3.Fiche région 2026 : Estrie · Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec
  4. 4.Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 4 R1 · ORNL DAAC
  5. 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. 6.Sap flow in sugar maple: timing and weather drivers (Frontiers in Agronomy, 2025) · de Lima Santos et al.
Show 3 more
  1. 7.2021 Census cartographic boundary files (census divisions, population centres) · Statistics Canada
  2. 8.Population and dwelling counts, 2021 Census (Tables 98-10-0002-01 and 98-10-0011-01) · Statistics Canada
  3. 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

Le Granit sugaring questions

When should I tap maple trees in Le Granit, Quebec?
In a typical year the sap starts running around March 19 near Lac-Mégantic and the season winds down around April 24. 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 6 and as late as Apr 6.
How much maple syrup does Le Granit produce?
Statistics Canada doesn't publish syrup volume by census division. Its 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 519 farms reporting 5,056,082 maple taps in Le Granit, number 2 of 61 Quebec divisions with a published count. Separately, the PPAQ's 2026 fact sheet for the Estrie region estimates annual production at 25.2 million lb of syrup from 6.1 million taps.
How many sap days does Le Granit get in a season?
On average 36 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Lac-Mégantic, of which about 11.1 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 2016 (52 sap days); the leanest was 2015 (24).
Where do these dates come from?
From 35 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Lac-Mégantic (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.

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