Hops (by R.A. Neve)

[Apimyces]

By the previews I had access to, looks like a pretty frigging awesome book. Here's the link:

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789401053754#otherversion=9789401131063

And I just got an email with the following deal: all eBooks for 20$*! Promo code: SPRHOLIDAY17

From my messing around, looks like the promo is 19.99 for whatever your currency is: euro, dollar, whatever. So might be worth saying you are from Canada, or heck even playing with some third world version, to see if you can get the 20 CAD price or with some even lower valued currency.

The book is from 1991, so it will miss a lot of the science done in the last 25 years, but still looks like a pretty good reference for anyone who is not already deep into the stuff.

 

[B-Hoppy]

I think I got my copy in like '93, worth the $75 it cost back then. All the information is a great foundation to build on and may surprise you when it comes to what a lot of current 'information' has been floating around the internet in recent years has claimed, haha!

 

[Apimyces]

25 years later would have been a great time for a second edition, though.

 

[Apimyces]

One passage that kind of surprised me:

The nettle family is also rather less closely related being in the
same order, the Urticales. It is possible to produce viable grafts between hops and
hemp and it is reported that pollination of hops by hemp, annual nettle ( Urtica
urens) or perennial nettle (Urtica dioica) stimulates cone development but only
abortive embryos are produced (Schnarf, 1929. Quoted by Davis, 1956).​

So with this in mind, could it not be worthwhile to intentionally grow Urtica spp. along the edges of hopyards (or more specifically, male Urtica dioica specimens), in order to 1) stimulate yields and 2) block intra-species pollination (and thus seed content)?

Granted, Urtica dioica is in general a pretty despicable plant, but subsp. galeopsifolia seems to lack the irritant proprieties of the rest of the genus (and as a bonus, its pollen can cross with other local nettles, yielding intermediate results, thus overall decreasing how irritant the wild populations are over the years).

As a non-commercial grower who doesn't care about seed content, I prefer the triploid male strategy which produces almost no seed, but male nettles would not generate any seed at all in the cones.