Maple syrup producers in Ontario's Lanark County say they're poised for a good season after an unusually warm December and January had some farmers worried about the spring run.

A deep freeze in February nipped the possibility of an early sap run in the bud.

"It was touch and go there in January and if it had stayed warm for another two or three more days, it would have been a bad situation," Mark Wheeler of Wheelers Pancake House and Sugar Camp in Lanark County, outside Ottawa, told the Ottawa Citizen.

"But it's hard to say what would have happened because it's never happened before," Mr. Wheeler said about the unusually warm spell. "It was a great sigh of relief to see the cold weather come and stay."

Weather is a crucial factor in the production of maple syrup, with producers getting their best yields when warm, sunny days follow freezing nights.  Some farmers say a sustained cold spell is crucial for quality syrup.

All over the county, which bills itself as the maple syrup capital of Ontario, farmers are out tapping trees in anticipation of a good sap run that will begin sometime in the next few days. If the weather holds, they expect the syrup season to last until mid-April.

Ray Fortune had a crew of three out tapping trees over the weekend on his Fortune Farms property despite freezing rain. They have to put in 7,000 taps before the sap begins to flow.

"We're tapping today, even though it's raining, because the weather next week is going to be mild — there's going to be a run of sap about mid-week next week, and we'd like to be ready," Fortune told CBC News.

Ontario maple syrup farmers produced more than one million litres of maple syrup in 2005.

According to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, the maple syrup industry is worth an estimated $15 million annually to the provincial economy. That's up from an estimated worth of $7 million in the mid-1980s.