Maple sugaring in Les Moulins, Quebec
- Sap starts
- Mar 9
- producers' record
- Season ends
- Apr 15
- about 5 weeks
- Sap days / season
- 25.4
- 1991–2025 average
- Taps, 2021
- withheld
- by Statistics Canada
Sap-flow outlook at Terrebonne right now
Full Quebec forecast →Forecast for Terrebonne, QC
Updated Oct 7, 11:30 AM EDT
Off-season for now. Sap needs freezing nights, and none are in sight. Les Moulins's season usually opens around March 9, which is 153 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 Terrebonne
Year-to-year spread
- Opening signal
- Median Mar 16; the middle half of seasons fell between Mar 13 and Mar 22. Earliest Mar 2 (2010), latest Apr 8 (1998).
- Closing signal
- Median Apr 16; middle half between Apr 12 and Apr 18. Earliest Mar 28 (2010), latest Apr 25 (2003).
- Sap days by month
- Dec13%Jan7%Feb11%Mar36%Apr31%May1%
35 seasons of sap weather
Les Moulins seasons, 1991–2025
Maple production
Les Moulins 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 7 in Les Moulins; in 2016, 6 farms and 4,192 taps.
Over the five years the farm count changed +17%. 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 | 7 | withheld by Statistics Canada |
| 2016 | 6 | 4,192 |
- "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
15 km · Laval
Laval
Sap ~Mar 8 – Apr 13 · 7 farms
16 km · Repentigny
L'Assomption
Sap ~Mar 10 – Apr 15 · 40,247 taps
19 km · Saint-Lin–Laurentides
Montcalm
Sap ~Mar 13 – Apr 18 · 450,184 taps
22 km · Montréal
Montréal
Sap ~Mar 9 – Apr 14 · 5 farms
25 km · Longueuil
Longueuil
Sap ~Mar 8 – Apr 14 · 13 farms
25 km · Saint-Eustache
Deux-Montagnes
Sap ~Mar 9 – Apr 14 · 251,250 taps
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 Terrebonne, the division's most populous municipality in the 2021 Census; the cell sits at 19 m (62 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. Full method, the Daymet checks and the Quebec validation → Run a sugarhouse here? Put this sap forecast on your own website →
Sources · 8
- 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.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.
- 5.Sap flow in sugar maple: timing and weather drivers (Frontiers in Agronomy, 2025) · de Lima Santos et al.
- 6.2021 Census cartographic boundary files (census divisions, population centres) · Statistics Canada
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- 7.Population and dwelling counts, 2021 Census (Tables 98-10-0002-01 and 98-10-0011-01) · Statistics Canada
- 8.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
Les Moulins sugaring questions
- When should I tap maple trees in Les Moulins, Quebec?
- In a typical year the sap starts running around March 9 near Terrebonne 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 Les Moulins produce?
- Statistics Canada doesn't publish syrup volume by census division. Its 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 7 farms reporting maple taps in Les Moulins; the tap count was withheld by Statistics Canada.
- How many sap days does Les Moulins get in a season?
- On average 25.4 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Terrebonne, of which about 10.7 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 (12).
- Where do these dates come from?
- From 35 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Terrebonne (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.


