Mar 6, 2017
The Wyoming County Chamber & Tourism is pleased to announce that Merle Maple Farm of Attica, NY, has been named the 2017 Agri-Business of the year. The annual award was presented at the 10th Annual Pride of Agriculture dinner on March 4, 2017.
“On behalf of the Board of Directors, we were very pleased to present the Agri-Business award to Lyle and Dottie Merle and Merle Maple Farm for their commitment to Wyoming County’s agriculture industry and their support of the community,” said Scott Gardner, Chamber President. “The Merle’s are a strong voice for the maple industry, dedicated to education and their craft, and are outstanding agricultural ambassadors for Wyoming County.”
Beginning with humble roots in the 1870s Merle Maple Farm has spanned six generations of Merle’s involved in agriculture, Lyle Merle is the fourth generation still on the Maple farm and owns and operates it with his wife Dottie.
When the Merle family began tapping, they never had more than 1,000 buckets to catch the sap and they used horse-drawn carriages to collect the buckets. That all changed when they began to use tubing in 1958. The boiler came shortly after in 1962. Later, to increase production, the farm installed a vacuum system that uses a reverse osmosis process and vacuum pumps to process the sap. Now they are even able to track the rate of sap extraction via the internet on a tablet computer.
Today, they use approximately 17,000 taps and at least 100 miles of line on the 400-acre farm. Of those taps, 4,500 run directly into the tap house with the remaining running into holding tanks scattered throughout the property. In 2011, the farm required new technology and equipment to assist with its mass production of syrup. A few of the innovative changes they made to the business is the use of UV lighting which sterilizes the sap to allow them to keep the sap longer before processing without losing the quality of the product. Advances in how the sap is boiled have also allowed the company to produce more using less energy. Even though they use fuel oil instead of wood to boil down the sap, they have tried to be “cleaner and greener” by developing ways to use less fuel oil for boiling than was used in years past, reducing their total consumption.
Merle’s are stewards of the land and “thin” the woods to allow for better growth of mature trees. As they thin and repurpose old or damaged trees, they are very conscientious to replace the trees with new ones. What distinguishes maple syrup production from other crops is the relative permanence of the trees that yield the crop. Instead of harvesting maple trees for wood products and generating an income right away, maple syrup allows income to be generated over the life of the tree.
The farm currently employs fifteen part time employees. However, during popular maple weekends, a visitor may find at least thirty members of the Merle family working in some capacity to assist the 3,000 people that visit the farm during the event. They enjoy the value of Maple Weekend, which welcomes visitors from across the region and affords the Merle’s and opportunity to educate the public about the maple industry and how it has evolved over the years. In addition to the syrup production, Merle Maple produces and carries an incredible variety of maple products, including maple sugar pieces, maple hard candy, maple granulated sugar, maple spread, maple barbecue sauce, maple hot sauce, maple mustard, maple pepper jelly, maple apple butter, maple pancake mix, maple seasoning, maple coated nuts, maple granola, gummy leaves and even maple dog biscuits.
One of the family’s most rewarding experiences with working and owning the Maple Farm is that they are able to create new products and work to keep ahead of the industry. In addition to developing better practices to increase productivity, Dottie is certified to make acidified products like the BBQ sauces and hot sauces.
They continue to grow in the marketplace and are well respected within their industry. Merle’s received the Maple Producer of the Year award in 2007, and in 1988, Lyle’s father Arthur was inducted into the Maple Hall of Fame, and received the Hubbell Award by the NYS Dept. of Ag and Markets which acknowledged their work to further education of maple sugaring.
Merle’s has received a number of Best in Show ribbons for their Maple Syrup at the New York State Fair. And Merle Maple Farms was one of the very first Maple producers to be listed with the Taste of New York tourism campaign which featured their products at Taste of NY kiosks up and down the NYS Thruway.
Lyle and Dottie have both contributed many hours and a great deal of maple products at various conferences and workshops, with the aim of helping other maple producers learn to make better maple, create a better value added maple product, and even the marketing and improvement of a maple display.
The annual agri-business award is given to a business that exemplifies the following criteria: contributions to the economic vitality and quality of life of Wyoming County, capital investments, business expansions, job growth, community involvement, and their contributions that strengthen their industry sector.
The Pride of Agriculture Dinner also featured the annual presentation of the coveted Pride of Agriculture - Good Neighbor Award, given to Charles and Velma Seewaldt of Varysburg, and the new Friend of Wyoming County Agriculture award given to Jodi Smith of Arcade, which are joint awards given by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Wyoming County, the Wyoming County Farm Bureau, and the Wyoming County Chamber & Tourism offices.