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The Pacific Northwest of the United States seems to be the main hop growing industry of America.
I can remember the driving through the magnificent hops regions on our last trip to Austria and Germany. I like beer. I used to seriously make beer. So I got to thinking about hops.
In Kentucky with the buy out of tobacco farmers and tobacco being phased out, KY farmers are looking for other means of income. Some have changed over to dairy herds and have gone into the cheese making industry. Many have changed to breeding beef cattle which to me is just another form of air pollution and not to good for the old heart and arteries. I have long thought this area of where I live in KY would be great for grape growing and some farmers are changing to that particular thing. I do not know whether or not growing hops would be good for this area.
The last time we drove through Yakima Valley we saw lots of hops. They smell marvelous.
Hops are grown in Hop Yards. The hop yards consist of trellis suspended over the yard by approximately 135 poles per hectare (55 poles per acre) and connected by high quality wire and cabling that stands five to six meters (16-19.5 ft.) above the ground. Traditionally, the U.S. hop industry has used a 7-ft. x 7-ft. (approximately 2 x 2 m.) spacing, which resulted in 1778 strings per acre and require quite a bit of investment to get started.
In late March old vines, leaves and debris is cleared away. The ground soil is tested and
In the spring, twine is stretched from the overhead trellis network to the ground to provide support and direction for growing hop vines. Over the next month vines are trained to climb up those strings. This is done by workers constantly visiting each vine and hand twisting the vines shoots several times around the string.
By late May or early June the hop grower must start to watch the irrigation, rain or watering as each hop field requires 20 to 30 inches of rain.
The fields are cultivated regularly to control weeds and improve soil texture first in April and the final cultivation in late June or early July. No cultivation is done until after the harvest. Hop growing is labor intensive and it doubles during harvest time.
Some of the US varieties of hops are Alpha, Aroma and Super Alpha giving about 19 varieties as of this writing.
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Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 Resources: Excerpted from “Food For Thought Series” by Arlene Wright-Correll
For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/ and click on Arlene’s Books you can download or buy my gardening & cook books. All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and we thank you for your attention to this site.
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