Maple sugaring in Juneau County, Wisconsin
- Sap starts
- Mar 9
- typical year
- Season ends
- Apr 3
- about 4 weeks
- Sap days / season
- 40.9
- 1991–2026 average
- Taps, 2022
- 166
- #54 of 60 in WI
Sap-flow outlook at Mauston right now
Full Wisconsin forecast →Forecast for Mauston, WI
Updated Oct 6, 9:06 AM EDT
Off-season for now. Sap needs freezing nights, and none are in sight. Juneau County's season usually opens around March 9, which is 154 days away.
No freeze-thaw days in the forecast
freeze thaw 32°F
- WedOct 751° / 72°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - ThuOct 844° / 66°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - FriOct 942° / 68°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - SatOct 1051° / 75°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - SunOct 1160° / 76°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - MonOct 1255° / 67°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 Mauston
Year-to-year spread
- Opening signal
- Median Mar 6; the middle half of seasons fell between Feb 25 and Mar 11. Earliest Feb 8 (2024), latest Mar 25 (2013).
- Closing signal
- Median Apr 6; middle half between Mar 27 and Apr 13. Earliest Mar 11 (2012), latest Apr 29 (2018).
- Sap days by month
- Dec15%Jan9%Feb17%Mar37%Apr20%May1%
36 seasons of sap weather
Juneau County seasons, 1991–2026
Maple production
Juneau County in the Census of Agriculture
USDA counts maple operations every five years. In Juneau County the 2022 Census found 9 farms making syrup (+50% since 2017), with taps -49% and syrup output +123% over the same five years. That works out to about 0.29 gallons of syrup per tap in 2022 (0.07 in 2017). Among the 385 counties in this atlas, Juneau County ranks 349 by taps.
| Census year | Farms | Taps | Gallons of syrup | Gal / tap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 9 | 166 | 49 | 0.29 |
| 2017 | 6 | 326 | 22 | 0.07 |
Nearby
Neighboring maple counties
28 mi · Baraboo, WI
Sauk County
Sap ~Mar 7 – Apr 2 · 15,084 taps
36 mi · Portage, WI
Columbia County
Sap ~Mar 7 – Apr 1 · 2,575 taps
36 mi · Richland Center, WI
Richland County
Sap ~Mar 8 – Apr 2 · 7,269 taps
38 mi · Sparta, WI
Monroe County
Sap ~Mar 10 – Apr 6 · 5,234 taps
43 mi · Wisconsin Rapids, WI
Wood County
Sap ~Mar 13 – Apr 9 · 6,844 taps
44 mi · Viroqua, WI
Vernon County
Sap ~Mar 12 – Apr 5 · 34,439 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 Mauston (899ft), 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 Wisconsin's USDA record (12 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 — Wisconsin, 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
Juneau County sugaring questions
- When should I tap maple trees in Juneau County, Wisconsin?
- In a typical year the sap starts running around March 9 near Mauston and the season winds down around April 3. 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 Feb 8 and as late as Mar 25.
- How much maple syrup does Juneau County produce?
- The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 9 maple operations in Juneau County with 166 taps producing 49 gallons of syrup, ranking 54 of 60 Wisconsin's counties with published tap counts.
- How many sap days does Juneau County get in a season?
- On average 40.9 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Mauston, of which about 11.3 are textbook days with a night in the 20s and a day in the 40s. The best season since 1991 was 2018 (59 sap days); the leanest was 2017 (27).
- Where do these dates come from?
- From 36 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Mauston (PRISM 4-km grid), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast, then calibrated against USDA's reported season dates for Wisconsin. They describe a typical year at one point in the county; your sugarbush, slope and elevation can shift them by days.


