2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Hops are an essential ingredient of beer. The burgeoning craft brewery industry in Florida has created a significant demand for locally produced hops, which coincides with Florida growers’ need of alternative specialty crops. An experimental hop yard with a typical high trellis was installed in central Florida in spring 2016. Hop plants grown in 2016 and 2017 under natural Florida day lengths (ca. 12 to 14 hours from March to September) were short and thin, with few laterals, and had very low yields of hop cones (below 868 lbs of fresh hops per acre). In 2018, the day length was extended by approximately 5 hours using supplemental LED lighting until plants reached a height of approximately 19 ft and developed multiple lateral bines. Under the extended day length, two crops were harvested in 2018, with the first one in mid June and the second crop in mid December. Fourteen commercial hop varieties evaluated under this system showed remarkable differences in plant growth, lateral development, cone yield, and chemical qualities. ‘Cascade’ and ‘Galena’ had the highest hop cone yields (2800 to 3715 lbs of fresh hops, or 620 to 987 lbs of dry hops, per acre per year), followed by ‘Comet’, ‘Magnum’, ‘Nugget’, ‘Willamette’ and ‘Zeus’ (1285 to 1752 lbs of fresh hops, or 300 to 500 lbs of dry hops, per acre per year). Hop cones were analyzed for alpha acid content, beta acid content, oil content, etc. Local craft brewers produced desired beers using the produced hop cones in small-scale test brewing.