The record warm March cut the maple sugar season short this year and contributed to reduced production, according to both the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association and the area’s best-known maple producer.

“We were about 50 percent of normal in terms of volume of sap collected,” said Ron Roberts, owner of Parker’s Maple Barn in Mason, which collects sap from about 1,400 taps on tree from a number of properties. “I’ve heard that Vermont was about the same.”

The result of the shortfall is that prices for maple syrup are likely to rise.

In its annual season report, the state association says taps were set out at the regular time of late January, but that boiling – the process of driving most of the water out of tree sap to produce syrup – began as early as Feb. 7 and ended by March 19.

Parker’s stopped boiling March 18, about three weeks earlier than normal because, as Roberts said, “in mid-March, summer hit.”

The syrup association said the situation was similar for all producers.

“The last boil of the season came early for many producers in the southern part of the state as temperatures rose into the 70s and 80s for five days forcing the buds to develop and cause undesirable sap for boiling,” it said in a statement.

Partly as a result, the group said “most producers found they had 50 percent to 66 percent of an average crop, but reports of only 33 percent of an average crop was not unusual.”

The poor season follows a good to excellent season last year, when Vermont had record production, and a weak season in 2010.

Roberts said Parker’s syrup had good flavor this year, winning first prize at the annual contest held in Peterborough by the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, although sap was less sweet than usual, which means more boiling was required.

“Sugar was down at least a half a percent to a full percent,” Roberts said.

Despite the role that maple syrup plays in New Hampshire’s culture and tradition, the state is the smallest producer in Northern New England. In 2011, for example, New Hampshire produced 120,000 gallons of syrup; Maine produced three times as much and Vermont, the nation’s leader, produced almost 10 times as much: 1.14 million gallons.

New Hampshire was even outproduced slightly last year by the mid-Atlantic producers – New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio – as well as the upper Midwest states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

All American producers are dwarfed by Quebec, however. That Canadian province generates about three-quarters of the world’s maple syrup, making 10 times as much as Vermont.

In New Hampshire, the producers association said, most syrup “was in the medium to dark amber grades, but a fair amount of light was produced, and many producers reported making B and commercial grade.”

The association said Seacoast producers showing the strongest season.