Known by many Cass County residents as the home to some of the region’s largest and most impressive assortment of foliage, Decatur’s Fred Russ Forest may soon develop a different — and sweeter — reputation.

Michigan State University has recently began selling jugs of “Spartan Pure Maple Syrup,” at its surplus store in East Lansing, as well as online. Sporting the familiar Spartan helmet logo on the front, each jug contains a dark, thick product made from sap collected from the Cass County forest — and produced by a growing county sugarhouse.

In late December, the University, which manages the 939-acre forest, partnered with Jones’ Maple Row Sugarhouse to tap around 2,000 sugar maple trees contained across 70 acres of the woods. The county syrup makers managed to extract around 850,000 gallons of sap from Russ Forest maple trees earlier this year, which they managed to boil down to around 800 gallons of syrup, said owner Daniel Olson.

In exchange for allowing Maple Row to extract sap from the forest, Michigan State’s Department of Forestry reserves the right of first purchase for whatever syrup the Jones business produces, Olson said.

“They have first dibs on all the syrup produced in Russ Forest,” Olson said. “If they want 10 gallons, they’ll get 10 gallons. If they want it all, they’ll get it.”

So far, Olson has bottled around 2,500 of containers of syrup for sale by the university, he said. The remaining gallons of the fluid not sold to the school will be bottled and sold by Olson’s business.

“We’ve partnered with the school to help them out, yet we’re still getting something out of it as well,” he said.

As would be expected of a university, officials with MSU are interested in the growth of the Russ Forest tap project not just for the sticky end product. The forest department has measured the size, grade and value of every tapped maple tree, and plans to monitor those numbers against trees contained in a separate 10-acre lot, said Greg Kowalewski, resident forester in the MSU Department of Forestry.

While Michigan is fifth largest producer of maple syrup in the U.S., only 1 percent of the state’s maple forests are used to make the popular sweetener.

“We have a lot of potential,” Kowalewski said. “The question is how does production affect the health and value of trees for lumber production.”

For Olson, who began producing maple syrup in 2011, working alongside MSU researchers has given him the opportunity to learn more about the trees that fuel his business, he said.

“I’ve helped them set up a lot of their studies,” Olson said. “It’s been pretty neat to see and be a part of that process.”

With only about half of the maple trees located in the reserved section tapped, Olson plans on finishing the work this fall, in preparation for extraction next spring.

Bottles of “Spartan Pure Maple Syrup” can be purchased online at msusurplusstore.com/product-p/8767.htm. All proceeds will support the Russ Forest and other department of forestry projects.