Transcript:

So a couple of days ago I made a video on how trees pull water up to 300 feet through the xylem network, and people asked, can you explain also how maple trees are able to push out the maple syrup and how we can tap it.

So here's what happens in maple trees. The starches that the tree stores are usually in the trunk and the branches, and in the maple tree, the tree releases an enzyme that transforms these starches into sugars, and these sugars are stored in these sap conduits.

Now surrounding these sap conduits are ray cells, and in the maple tree, these ray cells are filled with air and not water.

Normally, ray cells in trees are filled with water, except in maple trees, the ray cells are filled with air. And here's what happens in the winter when there is freezing and thawing going on.

When the tree freezes, the sap conduits expand, and it pushes the sap into the ray cells, which have air which is contracted, and when the thing thaws, the air expands and pushes the sap out into the collection port.

This is how maple trees produce sap, which we can tap. It's ingenious.