Source:  NCSU COOPERATIVE EXTENSION, 8/11/21

 Yesterday nine brewers, representing Sideways Farm & Brewery, Burning Blush Brewery, and Wicked Weed Brewing with their visitors from Tennessee, came out by special invitation to visit with Dr. Luping Qu in one of his hop breeding yards at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River, NC. Luping has been slowly, carefully, and quietly breeding hops for the Southeastern United States. The popular, commercially available hop varieties were all bred for the northern states, particularly Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. They perform pretty well in the new northern hop growing regions in Michigan, New York, and Vermont, for example. But when you bring those varieties south, the yields drop off dramatically. This is because hops are a photoperiod sensitive plant, i.e., they flower in response to changing day length. And our days are shorter here, and that reduces our yields. Yields can be increased by extending the day length by adding lights to the hop yard, but that is expensive, not practical in many cases, and has environmental consequences.

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