ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Nearly 1 million gallons of syrup are produced annually in New York state. But for every 20 gallons produced, one gallon is wasted. Students from the University of Rochester developed devices to combat that waste and help syrup producers save more syrup.

“Cleanliness is godliness out here,” said Chris Rodas, owner of Stoney Ridge Farms in Palmyra.

For maple syrup producers like Stoney Ridge Farms, collecting sap from maple trees can be an extensive process, but one they rely on.

“When we’re making syrup I’ve gone 36 hours without sleep,” Rodas said. “Running around getting everything ready and checking pumps.”

New York state is the second largest maple syrup producer in the U.S., but not all of the sap farmers tap actually makes it to your table.

“You got to handle it as quick as you can, get it boiled down and processed because sap spoils quite quickly, especially with heat,” Rodas said. “You know if it's got an off taste or if the sap don’t look good we dump it. We don’t even boil it.

According to the University of Rochester, nearly 1 million gallons of syrup are produced each year. But for every 20 gallons, one is wasted. Students found the waste mainly due to inefficient way of measuring sugar levels and the production of buddy or ropy syrup which are not fit for human consumption.

“Normal maple syrup if you touch it and lift up it should fall off in little droplets, whereas this…strains,” said Carly Blair, a student at the University of Rochester working to help develop methods of saving syrup not fit for human consumption.

Ropy syrup is caused by bacterial contamination, giving it a ropy appearance, whereas buddy syrup is characterized by a cabbage-like flavor.

“The real problem is that you can’t tell if your syrup is going to be buddy until you boil it down because that boiling down process is what brings out those chemicals and their lovely taste,” Blair said.

Often leaving farmers in the dark about the quality of their sap and the levels of glucose in their syrup until it’s too late.

“So the students were really excited to see if they could develop a new technology to help the maple syrup producers detect when a tree was making buddy sap,” said Anne Meyer, professor of biology at the University of Rochester.

The team of 12 students worked to come up with solutions to help farmers and producers detect problems in sap earlier in an effort to help save syrup in the long run.

“We actually ended up creating our own Glucose meter, we called it the Saptameter,” said Sudarshan Ramanan, a sophomore at the University of Rochester. “It’s very easy for any sort of farmer to figure out okay, my sample of sugar has this much concentration of glucose or has this much concentration of fructose or whatever they’re trying to sort of assess.”

They hope it will help syrup producers help themselves.

“Once the weather hits you hit the woods and get cranking,” Rodas said. “This is our life. This is what keeps the farm going yeah, making syrup.”