{"id":873,"date":"2010-05-14T17:52:42","date_gmt":"2010-05-14T21:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/extension\/cropsoil\/?p=873"},"modified":"2010-05-14T17:52:42","modified_gmt":"2010-05-14T21:52:42","slug":"may-14-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/hoppenin\/2010\/05\/14\/may-14-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"May 14, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know I promised many of you that we would make the presentations public from our March 26th<\/sup> Hops Conference: Hopping To It.\u00a0 Please allow me to assure you that that is still our intention, and it is still in the works.\u00a0 I won\u2019t bore you with the details (processing large video files, etc.), but we hope to have it available soon.\u00a0 Stay tuned!<\/p>\n

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In the meantime, a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Gatineau, QC for a hops workshop, hosted by our friends at CREDETAO<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 \u00a0 The workshop was presented by Julien Venne, an agronomist from the CREDETAO team, and Dr. Ron Godin, an agronomist from Colorado State University who has been working with hops for the last ten years or so.\u00a0 Check out the section on “Links to Hops Articles” on our Hops page to a hops trellising and budget presentation that Edward Page did with Ron a few years ago. <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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In Quebec, they might be a bit ahead of us in terms of local beer\u2026\u00a0 They\u2019ve already got a few completely local beers like La Rur\u2019ale<\/span><\/a>, and they have had some really exciting developments on the malthouse front too.\u00a0 Check out Malt de Maltbroue<\/span><\/a>, a farm that malts their own barley.\u00a0 (Sorry, in French\u2026)<\/p>\n

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The CREDETAO team is doing a variety trial similar to what we will be doing in Alburgh.\u00a0 They planted their rhizomes last year, and are trialing 10 varieties: Cascade, Brewer\u2019s Gold, Northern Brewer, Hallertau, Kent Golding, Willamette, Mt. Hood, Nugget, Tettnanger, and Hersbrucker.\u00a0 Since they are conducting research in a similar climate to ours, and are looking at some of the same varieties, the knowledge and insight that they gather will be invaluable.\u00a0 As many of you already know, most of the hops production in the US is in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and cultivated in large monocultures under dry conditions, something that we don\u2019t really have here in the Northeast.\u00a0 We are expecting different disease patterns here due to our high humidity and rainfall, and probably fewer of the hop specific pests.\u00a0 For example, in Quebec, they have seen problems with corn borers \u2013 not a pest that normally threatens hopyards in the Pacific Northwest, but a common pest that invades the corn fields in our region.\u00a0 This little guy apparently likes hops too.\u00a0 Iowa State has some good pictures of the European corn borer<\/a><\/span>, so you’ll know what to look for.\u00a0 As of yet, the corn borer hasn\u2019t been observed to limit production to any large extent, but the potential is there\u2026forewarned is forearmed.\u00a0 Keep your eyes peeled!\u00a0 In the Quebec variety trial, they\u2019ve also had powdery mildew (on Tettnanger, Hallertau, and Hersbrucker), what they suspect was downy mildew (the worst hit were Mt. Hood, Tettnanger, Hallertau, and Northern Brewer, the first two which are supposed to be moderately resistant to downy mildew), aphids, mites, and hops looper.<\/p>\n

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Some counsel that the Quebec team gave, which is worth mentioning:<\/p>\n