Dwarf Hops

[Apimyces]

Did anyone here ever try growing dwarf hops? Are the varieties any good? How "dwarf" is dwarf anyways?

Otherwise I've read that conventional hops can be grown in hedgerows or low treillis as well. Any reason not to do this if growing on a small scale?

 

[PapaBearJay]

The dwarf hops that are out there are proprietary and unavailable. True dwarf hops have a single recessive gene that controls height, but you could also breed for a "dwarf-stature" with quantitative genetics.

Also, yes, many conventional varieties can be grown on a short trellis but the subsequent decrease in overall yield and increased labor costs don't lend to sustainable production.

You'd be better off growing on a normal trellis with a dwarf variety than a conventional variety on a short trellis.

 

[Apimyces]

Well the english ones aren't patended (First Gold/Primma Donna, for example), but I guess for US growers imports would not be possible. I've got seeds of a few british dwarf hops, though I have no idea of dwarfism is recessive or not.

What kind of yield decrease are we talking about, and for the home grower is this much of an issue?

 

[Londonbrewer_x]

I'm wondering the same answer I live in London and want to have one or two hop plants at my small balcony for home brewing supplies. So far I only found two dwarf varieties and haven't found report of using them in actual brewing.

 

[Steveruch]

I grow goldings and sterlings. I train them along an unused clothesline in my backyard. I have no idea how much larger a harvest I'd get using a regular trellis, but I got eight ounces of goldings and 18 ounces of sterlings. While not a large amount I have more than enough for my needs.

 

[Apimyces]

I've got First Gold and Boadicea seeds, which are both british dwarf varieties, but I haven't tried germinating them yet.

How "dwarf" is a dwarf hop anyways? How long will it take before I can tell a seedling is a dwarf?

 

[GVH_Dan]

Seeds? If its not a rhizome, you really have no idea what is going to pop up.

 

[PapaBearJay]

Seeds? If its not a rhizome, you really have no idea what is going to pop up.

Dan is right. Also, you've got no guarantee if the seeds are viable. If they are, your best hope is to have a lot of them. Breeding and genetics is all about numbers. If you don't have numbers, it'll be difficult to find the right combination that you're looking for.

 

[PapaBearJay]

I've got First Gold and Boadicea seeds, which are both british dwarf varieties, but I haven't tried germinating them yet.

How "dwarf" is a dwarf hop anyways? How long will it take before I can tell a seedling is a dwarf?

If it's true dwarf, it should be relatively obvious. The plants will be stunted and won't grow very tall.

 

[Apimyces]

Sure, but after how long? Seedlings take quite a while to mature and grow, much more than a plant taken from a quality mature rhizome. Will the difference be apparent in the first year of growth, when started in pots indoors?

There seems to be rather little literature on the subject. All pictures are of fully grown mature plants, late in the season, which is really of little help to discriminate seedlings. Ideally, I'd like to know what is what before transplanting them in the field.

I do have a large number of seeds, but can't find any information on how the dwarfism trait behaves. Is it a dominant trait? Recessive? Additive? Is it dependent on a single gene? On many? I can't really find anything more concrete than "some cultivars are dwarves; these are shorter" for the time being.

So indeed, I don't know what will come out of those seeds, else I wouldn't ask for insights. I know their mothers, but not their fathers. These are diploid cultivars, though, and the cones had a ton of good looking seeds on them, so I do suspect that these are mostly viable diploid seeds, given that triploids have very low fertility.

 

[PapaBearJay]

You are correct on all accounts, and the trait should be visible within the first year. You may have to plant them in the field to ensure full expression of the trait though.

 

[Hanglow]

First Gold (prima donna), Sovereign, Pioneer, Boadicia and Endeavour are the only ones I know are commercially grown but I imagine there are a few others under trial. I've only seen first gold for sale as rhizomes though. The botanic gardens in my city has a small patch of them on a trellis and they grew nicely to about 6 feet. I think they may go a bit higher in a more hospitable place/under better care

Plenty of uk homebrewers grow first golds

 

[Steveruch]

First Gold (prima donna), Sovereign, Pioneer, Boadicia and Endeavour are the only ones I know are commercially grown but I imagine there are a few others under trial. I've only seen first gold for sale as rhizomes though. The botanic gardens in my city has a small patch of them on a trellis and they grew nicely to about 6 feet. I think they may go a bit higher in a more hospitable place/under better care

Plenty of uk homebrewers grow first golds

If I ever plant another British hop it will probably be first gold.

 

[Apimyces]

So no known means to differentiate them before planting them in the field? I've got thousands on 3.5" pots so that's the format I intended to grow them in, indoors, before transplanting the seedlings out in the field.

 

[PapaBearJay]

So no known means to differentiate them before planting them in the field? I've got thousands on 3.5" pots so that's the format I intended to grow them in, indoors, before transplanting the seedlings out in the field.

Unless you've got several thousand dollars to develop molecular methods for associating to DNA markers, then no there's not (that I'm aware of).

 

[Greatlakeshops]

We are in the final year of our breeding program at Great Lakes Hops. We started with over 500,000 seed crosses and are down to about 400 finalists that are going into sensory testing and oil profile testing.

After watching and evaluating all those crosses 1 or 2 left in the 400 appear to be dwarf. It has been a 7 year process. We may keep these for their interesting factor but dwarf would never be commercially viable making research and development of them pointless. Interestingly enough during the breeding program we had several thousand plants on mini trellises about 3' tall and a majority produced cones first year in small containers (Grown from plant stock not rhizomes). Not an incredible amount but more than enough to brew small batches with if you had a couple planted up growing well at home. For a home brewer/hobbyist I can not imagine there is a need to source dwarf hop plants simply because you do not have a full size trellis. We had plenty of yield off individual plants on our short trellis system for brewer evaluations, oil testing, sensory evaluation, etc with one plant growing up 2 strings at about 12' of total height. Some as low as 10'.

 

[Apimyces]

Thank you for the info. Could you elaborate more on the process, though? I do breeding for a living, but with animals. I do breed some plants, but for the time being, mostly as a hobby. I haven't yet invested enough to get a proper volume and I'm only now looking into hops specifically.

Only 1 or 2 of the top 400 of 500,000 appear to be dwarves, but is that because the starting stock wasn't Dwarf to begin with (thus possible mutation along the way), only gave a low number of seeds to begin with (low proportion of starting stock), or because gave largely discarded results (low performance)?

The scale I am looking to start at is the hundreds, and not hundreds of thousands. Of course this can be a limiting factor. But starting from only dwarf mothers, the odds of ending up with dwarf progeny is incredibly higher than if doing so with non-dwarf mothers and hoping for a mutation.

Commercial success of a cultivar, in the end, is a revenue:investment equation. Of course, a large-scale program using hundreds of thousands of crosses requires a wider adoption of the end product to be profitable. A smaller, more niche, and modest breeding program can likely become viable with the adoption from a single microbrewery. Of course, developing the next 'Cascade' requires massive resources, and I fully understand the scale of the operations behind cultivars like 'Citra' and other trademarked varieties. But I can't even export my rhizomes to the US from Canada, so why would I even aim for that? Of course it takes time, but I don't even do any annuals at all. All animals and perennials take time.

 

[B-Hoppy]

We are in the final year of our breeding program . . . .

What, all that work and you're done?

Are you going to be serving any beers brewed with those hops at the conference in Detroit?

 

[PapaBearJay]

I'm with Apimyces here, from the sounds of it the trait was either not present or...and what makes sense is you collected OP seed from hundreds of females in your yard. Realistically, you didn't make 500,000 crosses. You collected 500,000 seed from X total of females and planted them out. With luck you had 80-90% germinate and grow. You probably selected the most vigorous right off the bat (10-25%) and then potted them up before making further selections. In the process you tossed out many that could have contained other traits (dwarf for instance) because it wasn't as vigorous.

I'd be interested in hearing what traits you did select for though.

 

[DogStar]

I grow First Gold (Prima Donna). It's quite compact and grows to about 10 or 12 feet. The side shoots are also shorter than many other varieties. It's a great hop to grow in a smaller garden as it's very easy to manage. It's a very versatile hop that can be used in a variety of beer styles. It's excellent in British beers and stout. It's great in Belgian blond and witbier. I haven't tried it in lager yet but I've heard it works well. I want to try it in a Bohemian Pilsner. It's similar to WGV with an added orange citrus component. It also stores well.

 

[Apimyces]

It's very much peculiar to the breeding of perennial crops to view breeding as a path to a set destination, and a requirement for a massive scale. For some reason, because we can easily have uniformity through clonal division, it becomes assumed we must. And because we can take a single specimen for innumerable competitors, and replicate it without limit, we must.

We wouldn't want to clone a dairy cow, a honey bee queen, or corn from 200 years ago, yet with several perennial crops, that's exactly what we do. And when it comes to breeding, many cultivars have an old named cultivar as at least one parent, when not both (or even twice the same), or at the very least named grandparents. Shouldn't come as much of a surprise that most perennial crops tend to require important phytosanitary measures for respectable yields and quality. Pests have time to breed thousands, if not millions of times between each generation, depending on the pest's biological cycle.

Hops have a relatively fast biological cycle. They can often be made to flower within a single year, on the second at most. Raspberries will take 5, I believe, apples even longer. Of course, you can't fully assay a specimen's worth in its first year of growth, but one also needn't wait decades between successive generations. That's not an issue of genetics, merely of economics. Each method of breeding requires its own approach to financing in order to be profitable, which in most cases is the end target. But just because the economics of it have concentrated almost all new cultivars into a handful of breeders, just like how a select few hold control over almost all corn seeds, doesn't mean that similar results aren't possible with different and less onerous strategies. After all, with corn there are many who propose very decent true-bred or hybrid seeds, even if as a whole they represent but a tiny fraction of what's being done.

Hops have the potential to be true bred as well. As with anything else, it's a question of genetics. If you take a modern cultivar or wild specimen and cross it, today, you have no idea what you will end up with. But that's like with any other annual crop from back in the days. There have been so few successive crosses and we are still using the same few old cultivars so much that heterozygosity prevails. No traits have ever really been "fixed", mass -scale single or few-generation selection seeks specimens that are made remarkable by their heterosis. It's not their lack of poor alleles that make them stand out, it's the lack of these alleles being (fully) expressed. In other words, their phenotype is what makes them remarkable, not their genotype. If a breeding program was to break out of this mold, it is well within theoretical possibilities to establish true-breeding hop lines. Just like with almost every vegetable crops out there, and every animal breed. How long such an effort would take, what resources would be needed, how valuable the end product would be, and if it'd be profitable are all questions that require way more guesswork to answer. But selling seeds of a "piney and citrusy, downy-mildew resistant dwarf" hop line, for example, and then seedlings being all or mostly true to the advertised type, is well within the realm of the possible. Hops have no special qualities that make them any harder to cross than other crops and animals. If anything, the fact that they are long-lived, dioecious, and easy to clone would make them easier to breed.

 

[Greatlakeshops]

What, all that work and you're done?

Are you going to be serving any beers brewed with those hops at the conference in Detroit?

We don't brew ourselves so we wont be bringing any beer to the hop/barley convention. We will have a booth like usual as we do sponsor the event. I added an initial list of the first breweries to start brewing with our first new releases that have blown up. Michigan Copper TM and Mackinac TM. The rest of the samples are in a sensory evaluation program in conjunction with starving artist brewery. They are doing small batch releases with each of the unique hops. Each bottle has a code on it allowing you to log on and give your evaluation of the hop online as a means of data collection. www.starvingartist.beer

I cannot personally speak to the specifics of the breeding program as I am not the plant pathologist here at GLH. However, we obtained two males from Corvalis with know traits and made the seed crosses with all the genetic material we have collected as hop propagators. The intent of our program has been to create varieties for the midwest region specifically. New hop varieties released from out west like Yakima valley have proven to be a nightmare for our growers in the midwest region as they were never selected for success in this area. Our goal is to make what commercial varieties we have better, possibly create something completely different and new and ultimately end up with a GLH collection of hops that grow excellent, and brew excellent world class beer for the great lakes region of growers and brewers.

Our selection process has been based multiple criteria such as disease resistance, vigor, yield, cone density, side arm development, aroma, lupulin content, cone shatter, maturity date etc.

After that the remaining plants have been alpha/beta and oil profile tested and finally put into brewer evaluations all while comparing the data to the original commercial varieties to verify similarities, improvements, deviations, etc.

We did not use any known dwarf genetics as part of our program to my knowledge. Commercially speaking dwarf varieties will never be used. We did keep a few from the program that appeared to be dwarf for the fun factor but that's about it.

We are already seeing requests for Michigan Copper TM surpassing that of Cascade and couldn't be happier. These New Hop varieties are what is going to give this region the edge to compete with truly unique crops and incredible beer.

 

[Apimyces]

I have great respect for what you, and every other serious breeder does. As a breeder myself, I think the agriculture industry in general puts too little focus on genetics, and too much on non-structural band-aid solutions like pesticides.

If I understand correctly, though, your 500,000 crosses are the result of 1 generation of crossing between all of your hop cultivars with one of two Corvalis males? If this is the case, the low yield of dwarves would be understandable, and presumably associated with mutations, unless air-borne pollen from a wild dwaf male contaminated your lot. Not sure if you used open pollination or not.

This strategy offers the advantage of having more time and resources to determine the very best from a very large sample pool. It's disadvantage, however, is the low yield of novel traits. Maybe we could get a new hop cultivar that yields twice as much as the leading one, just by combining alleles from X, Y, and Z cultivars. But if these alleles are absent from the males, single-generation crosses would never be able to have all three of these, nor even two. While even if you increased to 3 males and each had X, Y, or Z, single-generation crosses would still never be able to unlock their full potential, because you'd never get all three in the same specimen. Even if you did millions of crosses. Many traits in nature are additive, so it's very possible that some desirable traits in hops are as well.

But it seems like there is very little literature on the genetics of hops. I guess amateurs tend to lack the theory behind it all, and professionals tend to keep the details to themselves. As with many other species I grow, I guess I'll have to do my own trials to learn more.

 

[Greatlakeshops]

I have great respect for what you, and every other serious breeder does. As a breeder myself, I think the agriculture industry in general puts too little focus on genetics, and too much on non-structural band-aid solutions like pesticides.

If I understand correctly, though, your 500,000 crosses are the result of 1 generation of crossing between all of your hop cultivars with one of two Corvalis males? If this is the case, the low yield of dwarves would be understandable, and presumably associated with mutations, unless air-borne pollen from a wild dwaf male contaminated your lot. Not sure if you used open pollination or not.

This strategy offers the advantage of having more time and resources to determine the very best from a very large sample pool. It's disadvantage, however, is the low yield of novel traits. Maybe we could get a new hop cultivar that yields twice as much as the leading one, just by combining alleles from X, Y, and Z cultivars. But if these alleles are absent from the males, single-generation crosses would never be able to have all three of these, nor even two. While even if you increased to 3 males and each had X, Y, or Z, single-generation crosses would still never be able to unlock their full potential, because you'd never get all three in the same specimen. Even if you did millions of crosses. Many traits in nature are additive, so it's very possible that some desirable traits in hops are as well.

But it seems like there is very little literature on the genetics of hops. I guess amateurs tend to lack the theory behind it all, and professionals tend to keep the details to themselves. As with many other species I grow, I guess I'll have to do my own trials to learn more.

Yes, we used 2 males, a known high alpha disease resistant male and a high aroma male. Again, our entire purpose with the program is to improve the commercial viability of some already known varieties and to do so for the mid-west region specifically. The incredible part is seeing the incredible variation in traits between sister plants of the same crosses. We're optimistic that we not only have better versions of a lot of desirable varieties already but we absolutely have some unique and completely different plants as well.

We aren't secretive about the program per say however people need to realize that it comes with great cost and time with no guarantee of ever paying you back. From the complete creation of an on-site lab to oil testing costs and evaluation costs. We will be completing the construction of a second facility this year dedicated solely to this program as we see the industry is going to be in desperate need of it as the hop growers out west close the door on new varieties and even the availability of getting material from Corvallis.

Bravo to anyone who wants to take on a breeding program. New hop varieties and especially superior hop varieties can only mean better things for the craft brewing industry and hop growers. We like both.

 

[Apimyces]

I hope you'll find some Canadian propagators so that I get to try your new cultivars.

The hops industry here is small. There was some growing interest, but I wouldn't say it's booming. Who knows, maybe some locally adapted varieties would help out? I'm not aware of any canadian cultivar, except possibly Redvine, which has the glorious end use of "filler". I never even heard of such a thing before reading up on that one.

I also just noticed that PapaBearJay told me the dwarf trait was based on a single recessive allele. I either didn't notice or remember that. Knowing that will save me a lot of time.

 

[B-Hoppy]

. . . I'm not aware of any canadian cultivar, except possibly Redvine, which has the glorious end use of "filler". I never even heard of such a thing before reading up on that one.

Hey, hey, hey, easy on the Redvine, hahaha! http://allaboutbeer.com/canadian-red-vine/

 

[Apimyces]

Hey, hey, hey, easy on the Redvine, hahaha! http://allaboutbeer.com/canadian-red-vine/

Well, I'm intending to propagate some and use it in my breeding program, but you have to admit, "this is a great filler hop!" is not a good selling point for brewers. Nor is any of its' supposed organoleptic characteristics (oniony, cheesy, harsh, etc.)

 

[B-Hoppy]

. . . Nor is any of its' supposed organoleptic characteristics (oniony, cheesy, harsh, etc.)

When it comes to searching for information in today's world, who do you believe? I kind of feel sorry for folks today as many use google search as the final word. Take a look at some of the reviews of products listed on amazon, many of those are paid for and people believe them, haha.

I don't think anyone can tell you exactly what you can expect from a certain hop due to the many variables that can be encountered along the way until it reaches your taste buds. Also, I'm not saying that CRV is a strawberry bomb because it's never ever given me that character over the years, but then again, I've never grown it in Massachusetts or North Carolina. Harvest timing and terroir can have a huge impact on what the final product presents, as will how the crop is processed after harvest. You also have to look at who is providing the descriptors as to how that hop is perceived, how trained are their palates? Grow some different varieties for a few years and utilize them in some beers to see for your self as to what they have to offer is the best suggestion I can make.

From that article: “As far as onion or garlic, we didn’t get anything,” says Sierra Nevada brewer Tyler Downey. And: https://byo.com/blogs/entry/mystery-solved

http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/great_...nce_to_feature_single_hop_craft_beer_tastings

https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/37394/DanielSharpC2013.pdf?sequence=1

 

[Apimyces]

When it comes to searching for information in today's world, who do you believe? I kind of feel sorry for folks today as many use google search as the final word. Take a look at some of the reviews of products listed on amazon, many of those are paid for and people believe them, haha.

I don't think anyone can tell you exactly what you can expect from a certain hop due to the many variables that can be encountered along the way until it reaches your taste buds. Also, I'm not saying that CRV is a strawberry bomb because it's never ever given me that character over the years, but then again, I've never grown it in Massachusetts or North Carolina. Harvest timing and terroir can have a huge impact on what the final product presents, as will how the crop is processed after harvest. You also have to look at who is providing the descriptors as to how that hop is perceived, how trained are their palates? Grow some different varieties for a few years and utilize them in some beers to see for your self as to what they have to offer is the best suggestion I can make.

From that article: “As far as onion or garlic, we didn’t get anything,” says Sierra Nevada brewer Tyler Downey. And: https://byo.com/blogs/entry/mystery-solved

http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/great_...nce_to_feature_single_hop_craft_beer_tastings

https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/37394/DanielSharpC2013.pdf?sequence=1

Agreed, terroir might have an impact. But while they didn't "get anything", they also go on to say that they used so little of it, they really have no idea what flavors it confers.

 

[B-Hoppy]

Like I said:

. . . Grow some different varieties for a few years and utilize them in some beers to see for your self as to what they have to offer is the best suggestion I can make.

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