SHARON, Vt. (AP) – Maple sugar maker Arthur Berndt has 16,000 maple trees on his Maverick Farm, but he worries about their future.

He says branches are dying, trees aren’t regenerating as well as they once did and yield less syrup than he expects, given his equipment and technology. He believes climate change may be to blame.

“The long-term effects are that sugarmaking in Vermont will become a thing of the past if left unchecked,” said Berndt,

He sees a grim scenario for the future of the nation’s No. 1 producer of maple syrup.

The state, which has an estimated 500 million sugar maples, has about 2,000 sugar makers who produce about 500,000 gallons of syrup a year. It’s a key part of Vermont’s economy – and its image.

“When you think about all the other sugar makers in Vermont who depend on maple syrup for some of their income,” Berndt said. “That’s not going to be available to them in 20, 30, 50 years if we don’t change things. And Vermont will not have the cache it once had, with people visiting sugar houses, so it will have an effect on tourism as well.”

Berndt, who is also an environmental activist, has taken his concerns about global warming to federal court. He has joined a lawsuit filed by environmental groups Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace and four U.S. cities including Boulder, Colo.

They are suing the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the Export-Import Bank for helping to fund overseas power plants, which they say contributes to global warming.

In the 20 years since Berndt and his wife bought Maverick Farm, they’ve noticed a change.

The maple trees, already stressed by acid rain, have new challenges, such as pests he believes are linked to warming climate.

“They all normally occur in the forest, but I think what happens now is you’re going to greater infestations and adds another stress to the trees that are already stressed because the environment is no longer optimum for their growth,” Berndt said.

He fears the maple will move north and other trees, such as hickory, oak and ash, will prosper.

Many sugar makers who rely on freezing nights and thawing days have noticed a shift in the weather. Mild winters have prompted sap to flow in February and sometimes as early as January.

“Traditionally, in the old days, you wouldn’t ever get a February run,” said Blaine Moore, who works for Berndt and grew up on the land. “You look at the old sugar maker records and April was when you made the syrup. Now, the last three years, we didn’t hardly make any in April.”

A study by the University of Vermont Proctor Maple Research Center has found that the sugaring season is three days shorter than it was in the 1940s. That doesn’t sound like much, but for a product with a 30-day season, it’s a 10 percent reduction.

And the season is starting about a week early in many places.

This year was different. After an unusually warm January, cold delayed sugaring until mid-March, which is later than usual in Vermont.

“That’s not at all inconsistent with global change,” said Timothy Perkins, director of the research center. “We expect to have higher variability than we’ve had in the past.”

In an ongoing study, the center is assessing the impact of climate change on the maple industry.

“Now we’ve lost 10 percent of the season, but people don’t really notice it much. But at some point there will be reductions in yield,” Perkins said.

But so far, so good with Vermont’s season, according to Tim Wilmot, a University of Vermont Extension maple specialist.

“Right now, we’re just dealing with the weather we have, and it’s no different than any other year. Yes, it was quite warm in December and January. But now the weather is behaving like it always does. It’s up and down. We could get a snowmstorm anyday,” Wilmot said.

Not everyone believes climate change is taking a toll.

“In farming, you talk to 10 different farmers and you’ll get 10 different stories with 10 different grumbles,” said David Knappett, owner of Maple Orchard Farms of Canada, Inc., in Bracebridge, Ont., which buys syrup from farmers and finishes it. “I don’t think, as of yet, that any climate change has affected maple production.”

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On the Net:

University of Vermont Proctor Maple Research Center: http://www.uvm.edu/ 7/8pmrc/

Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association: www.vermontmaple.org