New Brunswick Craft Brewers Association

Brewing => Hops => Topic started by: jdueck on August 12, 2015, 03:46:49 PM

Title: Mmm, Beer: Brewers Are on a Quest to Breed a Better Hop
Post by: jdueck on August 12, 2015, 03:46:49 PM
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/mmm-beer-brewers-quest-breed-better-hop/
Title: Re: Mmm, Beer: Brewers Are on a Quest to Breed a Better Hop
Post by: Two Wheeler on August 12, 2015, 04:17:15 PM
Very interesting article, especially since it's a Maritimes brewery. Funny how they got the male hop pollen back

Quote
But he couldn’t take the plant material across the border to Canada—so he stuck baggies over the top of the plants, collected their pollen, and brought it back to sprinkle on top of the female flowers grown by the brewery.
Title: Re: Mmm, Beer: Brewers Are on a Quest to Breed a Better Hop
Post by: Roger on August 12, 2015, 04:28:34 PM
Wow that sounds like an interesting experiment. I should give that a try...
Title: Re: Mmm, Beer: Brewers Are on a Quest to Breed a Better Hop
Post by: JohnQ on August 12, 2015, 04:43:22 PM


Among a couple of annoying inaccuracies in the article, the actual reason
Quote
most growers don’t bother keeping any males around
is that if your female hops plant gets pollinated by my happy girls, your hops harvest will plummet, as the females turn to seed.
Beware of growing male hops on purpose, it's why they aren't suggested to be grown from seed, when you take a rhizome or a cutting, you're cloning the female.

JQ

Title: Re: Mmm, Beer: Brewers Are on a Quest to Breed a Better Hop
Post by: Roger on August 12, 2015, 05:12:43 PM
I still think it would be interesting to cross pollinate a wild variety that's thriving in our area with something that might be hard to grow around here like Nelson or Citra or something. I'm pretty sure I saw some males on an old farm the other day.
Title: Re: Mmm, Beer: Brewers Are on a Quest to Breed a Better Hop
Post by: Al-Loves-Wine on August 12, 2015, 06:00:42 PM
Would definitely be interesting to do some cross pollination. Hop bines can still get the occasional male from year to year though. Nick was telling me last night that he only had to pull 9 males this year, but said he has seen as high as 30+ in a year too. I guess the isolation required to get your rhizomes consistently producing female is quite a process.