Growing hops as a business. Global hop market. The hops market in Russia. Types and varieties of hops

Hops belong to the hemp family.

There are three types of hops found in nature:

• Ordinary.
• Heart-shaped.
• Japanese.

Common hops are used in production. In another way it is also called khmil, khmelitsa or bitterweed. It has sedative properties on a par with passionflower and motherwort.

Everyone knows that hops are used in the brewing industry, but these are not all areas of its application. It is widely used in medicine, pharmaceuticals, cosmetology, the perfume industry, for bakeries and canning. 15% of hop stems consist of fiber, which is suitable for making rope, burlap, yarn and paper.

Characteristics of hops:

• The maximum length of an individual hop stem is 5-7 meters; it is a climbing plant covered with hooked thorns.
• Females produce dense cones, which consist of 20-60 flowers, and male inflorescences are leafless panicles; light pollen from them is carried over a distance of up to 3 km.
• The life cycle of the plant lasts up to 20 years, in rare cases more. The plant is distributed in the European part of the CIS, Eastern and Western Siberia, and the Caucasus.
• You can grow it at home in any part of the planet; hops do well even in dusty areas of the city; they are completely unpretentious.

Collected hop cones can be used for food purposes. They are rich in vitamins B1, B2, B6, PP, and contain valeric and hop tannic acids, flavonoids, ash, hormones, essential oils, lupulin, the alkaloid humulin and a large number of macro- and microelements.

The leaves and stems contain large amounts of vitamin C.

Hops are added to preparations to produce the following effects:

• Anti-inflammatory.
• Painkiller.
• Anticonvulsant.
• Bactericidal.
• Antiulcer.
• Antiallergic.
• Hyposensitizing.
• Capillary strengthening.

Hops are used to improve the functioning of the digestive and cardiovascular systems. Hop infusion is effective for insomnia, nervous excitement, oncology, diathesis, gastritis, ulcers, cholecystitis, nephritis, cystitis, atherosclerosis and hypertension.

It is forbidden for pregnant women to take hop-containing products, as the plant is poisonous.

Hops love moist, fertile soils. Under natural conditions, it grows in oak-ash forests, hiding behind bushes and in ravines. Soils should be rich in humus.

Don’t be afraid to grow hops in the city near busy highways; this will not affect the quality of the hops.

Basic conditions for growing hops on the balcony:

• Large pot (since hops have large roots).
• Installing a support around which the shoots will curl.
• Regular watering every 3 weeks.
• Annual pruning of shoots.

In autumn, yellowed cones are cut off and dried. They can then be used to make medicinal and cosmetic recipes.

If you need a large number of plants for your own needs or for sale, the question arises: how to grow hops over a large area:

• To plant, you need to find a sunny place and the area must have good drainage. A support for growth is installed near almost every plant. The ideal place is the south side of the house. In addition, hops have high decorative qualities.
• The soil should be loose, with a pH of 6.5-8. You can lay out a layer of sand to a depth of 30 cm. Each hole is made at a distance of more than 1 meter from one another. Compost or soil for seedlings is laid out at the bottom of the hole.
• The rhizome, that is, a creeping underground stem, deepens 5-10 centimeters in a horizontal position, the roots look down. Now the soil can be compacted, the hole covered with hay and watered generously.
• The upper part of the plant dies off every winter, and the perennial part, the rhizome, develops underground. Hop roots can withstand harsh winters.
• When the first shoots appear, they need to be cut off after two weeks. Only the strongest shoots remain, in the amount of 3 pieces. The staking is carried out when an individual hop vine has grown to 40 cm.
• Hops grow very quickly; in good spring weather, the shoot can lengthen by 15 cm.

During the period of active growth, it is advisable to add a large amount of nitrogen. This is not a mandatory procedure; compost will be enough for normal development, but nitrogen will save the plant if the leaves suddenly begin to turn yellow or become smaller.

The plant is watered frequently, but the water should not stagnate. It is advisable that water does not fall on the leaves.

To make the cones ripen faster, the plant is sprayed with a 40% solution of ammonium nitrate. If alfalfa weevil or fleas appear, the shoots are treated with chlorophos. 40% phosphamide will help get rid of spider mites; 80% polycarbacin or 80% zineb, 80% cuprozan will cope with other diseases. Viruses can be destroyed using zinc sulfate.

Common hops reproduce in several ways:

• Dividing the bush.
• By dividing the rhizome.
• Cuttings.
• By layering.
• Seeds.

Propagation by seeds is used less frequently, but this method is suitable if you need to sow a large area.

To propagate hops vegetatively, you need to wait until spring, until the shoots begin to grow, dig up the rhizome and cut it into several parts. The result will be several cuttings. On each one, full-fledged kidneys should be clearly visible.

In the first year, the cuttings are already ready to develop independently, so it is up to the gardener to grow them in the garden or plant them in a permanent place.

Propagation by seeds is also not difficult:

• It is better to grow seedlings at home by sowing seeds in bowls.
• When the seedlings appear, they require the same care as any indoor plants.
• Next, the sprouts are transferred to the soil and grown.
• Only in the second year will the seedlings begin to grow quickly; in the first year they will reach small sizes.
• When propagating by seeds, there is a risk of obtaining a large number of males.
• Because of this, seedlings are planted close to each other, and when the fruiting period begins, the males are isolated.

In order for the plant to develop well, 3 kg of rotted manure is placed in the planting hole.

Amateur gardeners grow several individuals, but if there is a need to plant an entire plantation, then it is important to maintain the distance between the rows and bushes. Between hops it will be 1 meter, and between rows 3 meters.

You can collect the first cones already in the first year if the hops were obtained by vegetative propagation, but the harvest will be small. Full-fledged cones will grow in the second year. But plants that grew from seeds will bear their first fruits only after 4 years.

Cones can be collected from mid-August to mid-September.

The cones at this moment should be at the initial stage of ripening, so do not delay. It’s even better to calculate the period when there are several days left before the buds ripen. This can be determined by the color, it will be greenish yellow. If the color is bright green, it means the buds are not yet ripe; if there is a brown tint, it means they are overripe. There is no point in collecting cones with protruding scales, since they contain few seeds and lupulin.

The cone is torn off along with the stalks; if the cone is without a stalk, it will fall off during the drying process.

Growing hops is not difficult; it does not require special conditions or knowledge. hops can be used in various fields: medicine, cooking, cosmetology.

More information can be found in the video.

The mention of hops among ordinary people invariably evokes associations with intoxicating drinks, and only plant growers know how luxurious this unpretentious plant looks in landscape design. Lush hop vines twining over fences, gazebos and house walls can turn the most ordinary garden plot into the backdrop of a fairy tale. And all this magnificence without extra costs and hassle!

Types and varieties of hops

There are usually 2 types of hops used in cultivation:

• Common hop is a dioecious perennial plant with tetrahedral, strongly climbing stem shoots that grow up to 6 m in length. Large lobed leaves are serrated along the edges. Male flowers are collected in loose paniculate inflorescences with greenish-white bracts. Female inflorescences have a recognizable pineal shape. Flowering of common hops continues from the second ten days of June until the beginning of August.
• Japanese hop (climbing) is a fast-growing ornamental annual, reaching a height of more than 4 m. Large-lobed dark green leaves are strongly cut. There is also a variegated form of the species, which prefers bright light and loses the characteristic color of the leaves from a long stay in the shade.

Both types of crops are suitable for landscaping. However, if you plan to use hop cones as a raw material for beer wort, it is recommended to pay attention to well-known breeding varieties bred specifically for this purpose and their more affordable analogues.

The cultivation of the planting area is carried out at the end of autumn. Separate holes or common trenches 55–60 cm deep are dug along the perimeter of the selected area. Manure is mixed with fertile soil, placed in the holes and covered with a layer of soil. After compacting the nutrient mixture, the pit should be half filled.

Landing

The best time to plant hops in a permanent place is mid-spring. Young seedlings, cuttings cut from 3–8-year-old vines, and rhizome sections can be used as planting material.

• Planting material is placed in prepared pits (trenches).
• The voids are filled with soil. The soil around seedlings or cuttings must be compacted. The rhizomes are completely covered with an earthen layer.
• The planting site is watered abundantly with warm, settled water.

If the hop plant is located in an open space, after planting is completed, reliable support must be provided for each plant.

Features of care

Hops develop rapidly, requiring virtually no care. However, in the first 2–3 years of growth, he still needs several basic procedures:

• The soil under the plantings is periodically loosened, removing weeds and breaking up the dried earthen crust. Good aeration is one of the most important conditions for the proper development of a young root system.
• Being a moisture-loving crop, hops love abundant watering. Constant moderate soil moisture promotes active growth of green mass, which ensures the decorative appearance of the plant. However, overwatering should be avoided: waterlogging of the soil negatively affects the condition of the roots.
• Every 15–20 days, young hops are fed with complex fertilizers and organic infusions. It is not recommended to be overly zealous with nutrition: an excessive concentration of beneficial microelements leads to a decrease in the disease resistance of the crop.
• Pests rarely visit hop plantings. Sometimes the vines become the target of attack by leaf-eating insects, which can be easily repeled by spraying the plant with an infusion of tobacco dust or wormwood.
• If yellow-brown spots appear on the surface of the leaves, and the underside of the plates are covered with a bluish-white coating, then most likely the hop is infected with powdery mildew. In this case, the damaged leaves are torn off, and the entire above-ground part of the plant is sprayed with a solution of fungicides.
• In the fall, when the foliage fades, Japanese hops are dug up and disposed of. In its common relative, only dried shoots are cut off. The rhizomes of perennial hops successfully overwinter in the ground, and in the spring the plant's growth resumes.

It is important to remember that as hops grow, they begin to oppress neighboring plantings - fruit trees and shrubs, ornamental and vegetable crops. To ensure that the site does not resemble an impenetrable jungle, the development of vines must be controlled by systematically eliminating excess specimens.

Reproduction

To expand plantings, perennial hops are propagated by dividing rhizomes, which is carried out in the spring, with the beginning of the growth of new shoots. Root cuttings are cut with a sharp shovel directly in the ground, without digging up the mother bush. For planting, use pieces of rhizome 12–14 cm long with 2–3 pairs of eyes. The material is planted in a permanent place immediately after cutting or stored until planting, buried in damp sand or moss. Japanese hops are propagated by sowing seeds in a permanent place of growth. You can also use young shoots for planting that have grown by self-sowing from last season’s seeds.

Collecting cones

Harvesting of hop cones begins when they reach technical ripeness. The color of the fruits ready for picking changes from bright green to greenish-golden. The cone itself, having lost its airiness and looseness, becomes elastic and dense. At this stage, hops have a bright, specific aroma emitted by lupulin glands.

Collecting cones is a long and labor-intensive process. They are removed from the lash one at a time, starting with the largest specimens. The cones intended for the preparation of beer wort are dried at a temperature of +55–60° C. In addition, dried hops can be added to bread, confectionery and soft drinks. It is very useful to stuff small pillows and mattresses with pine cones. Thanks to the sedative properties of hops, such bedding has a calming and relaxing effect.

Hops in landscape design

Luxurious dense green hop vines, decorated with golden cones, are a fertile material for the work of a landscape designer. Thickets of common perennial hops are a spectacular backdrop for brightly flowering summer crops. The Japanese look goes well with climbing roses. Thanks to their rapid growth, hop vines reliably twine around any support in a short period of time. This quality allows the culture to be used to create the most daring and fantastic plant compositions.

If hops fill an area too actively and it is not possible to remove it mechanically, gardeners have to resort to radical methods:

• Unwanted hop plantings are treated with special chemicals. However, this method is advisable to use if the hop area is not planned to be used for planting other crops.

Hops (Humulus L.) belong to the hemp family (Cannabinaceae L.). The hop genus is divided into three types: common hop (H. lupulus L.), heart-shaped hop (H. cordifolius Mig) and Japanese hop (ff. japonicus Sieg. Et Zuss). Common hops are of greatest production importance.

Hops are grown for the brewing industry. In addition, it is used in medicine, pharmaceutical, perfume and cosmetics, canning and baking industries. Hop stems also provide fiber, the content of which is about 15%.

Common hop is a perennial, dioecious plant with a liana-like twisted stem. The underground part is perennial, the stem is annual, dying off in late autumn.

Hop plants have vegetative organs - roots, stems, leaves and generative organs - flowers, fruits, seeds. Plant organs can change depending on growing conditions. In particular, underground shoots form rhizomes, from which 10-12 highly branched skeletal roots grow, which are divided into thinner ones, with a dense network of small roots. Small roots and rhizomes form a well-developed root system, which penetrates the soil to a depth of about 4 m and disperses up to 3 m. The bulk of the roots are located in the upper (about 1 m) layer of soil.

The main rhizome of hops is a perennial underground shoot with buds. Its greatest growth is observed in the 4th year and it is during this period that more buds are formed on it, which later germinate and form a large number of shoots. When growing cultivated hops, the number of shoots is reduced annually, forming the main rhizome, removing excess shoots.

The stems are branched, green or red, long (about 10 m or more), up to 13 mm thick, herbaceous, covered with hairs. Sweet hook-like spines are placed along the edges of the stem, with the help of which the hops are firmly held on the supports. There are such thorns on the side shoots, petioles and on each side of the leaves.

The leaves are simple. Their shape is heart-like. The largest leaves are in the middle part of the plant, smaller in the lower and upper parts. The upper side of the leaf is dark green, the lower side is lighter, and there are glands on it that contain resins and essential oil. The number of leaves before flowering is about 400, and during the harvest period - 600.

Inflorescences. Female inflorescences are cones containing 20-60 small flowers. The flowers consist of five petals and five stamens.

Male plants do not form cones and have no practical significance, so they are removed.

The fruit is a small brown nut.

Hop seeds are small. Weight of 1000 hop seeds is 2-4 g.

Hop growing technology

Hops are grown on flat areas with a slight slope (up to 5°) to the south, southwest and southeast.

The hops are placed on tracts (hop fields) with an area of ​​20-30 hectares, which are divided into separate plantations (squares). To protect hops from the winds, a hop bed is planted near a forest, shelterbelt or garden. If there is a need to plant a hop plant in an open area, then it is planted in advance (2-3 years in advance) with protective strips (2-3 rows) of fast-growing trees at a distance of 20 m from the edges of the plantation.

Hop fields are planted on soddy, slightly and medium-podzolic soils, gray and dark gray forest soils, and the groundwater level is not higher than 1.5 - 1.8 m from the soil surface. Heavy and light sandy and swampy soils are unsuitable for it. The groundwater level on plantations in summer should be no higher than 1.5 - 1.8 m.

The areas allocated for hop fields are divided into squares measuring 2 - 2.5 hectares, between which roads 3 - 4 m wide are left. On each hectare of hop fields, 145-150 pillars 8-9 m high are buried for trellises. A galvanized wire is stretched on the tops of the pillars, from which wire supports are pulled to each hop bush and secured with pegs 50 - 60 cm high at a distance of 40 cm from the bushes.

Soil cultivation when growing hops

After planting the hop plant, after grain and leguminous crops, the stubble is peeled, after 2-3 weeks, approximately half the norm of organic and phosphorus-potassium mineral fertilizers is applied and plantation plowing of the soil begins to a depth of 45 cm. After 3-4 weeks, the remaining fertilizers are applied and the area is plowed to a depth of 25 cm. The general rate of organic fertilizers is 50-60 t/ha, mineral fertilizers 7-8 c/ha (P90K90). After row crops, the soils are not hulled, but processed only with plows. There is another way to prepare the soil for planting hops, in which, instead of planting, deep plowing of 30 - 35 cm is used. In the fall, in areas fertilized and filled with fertilizers, holes are dug with BM-204, BKGO-67, BKGM-66-2 machines measuring 60x60x60 cm, placing them in rows according to patterns of 2.1x1m, 2.1x1.6m, 2.5x1m. At the beginning of spring field work, the holes are filled with fertile topsoil mixed with 5 - 7 kg of humus or compost and annual hop seedlings grown into a nursery or cuttings begin to be planted. Planting depth 8 - 10 cm from the soil surface.

Caring for hop crops

Hop seedlings appear in 7-10 days, cuttings - in 10-15 days. During this time, a crust may form on the soil surface, which is destroyed by loosening the row spacing. When approximately 75% of seedlings appear on the soil surface, the condition of the plantation is checked and hop seedlings or cuttings that have not germinated are replaced with spare ones.

After hop germination, when the plant height is 50-60 cm, the stem is placed on a support and the row-spacing is loosened with cultivators simultaneously with harrowing to a depth of 10-12 cm.

During the growing season on hop plantations in the first year of life, 4-5 fluffing of row spacing and one hilling of plants with a PRVM-Z plow-loosening agent are carried out. In the second year of hop life, in early spring, the ridges are plowed and raked, and the lateral rhizomes and underground stems of the previous year are cut off on the hops. The height of cutting the stems depends on the condition of the plants: on highly developed plants they are cut off completely, on underdeveloped ones - above the first and second pair of eyes. Mechanized cutting of queens is also carried out using the PKKH-1 device on a plow-ripper.

Severely damaged or dead plants are uprooted and new cuttings or hop seedlings from the nursery are planted in their place. Per 1 hectare, the density of productive stems of plantings should be 14 - 16 thousand. Cut stems and other remains are taken outside the plantation and destroyed.

After pruning the hops, herbicides are applied and the soil is loosened between the rows. To kill weeds, herbicides such as 50% sitrin (3.5 - 5 kg / ha), 50% dual (2.5 l / ha), 48% bazag-ran (2.1 l) are used / ha) etc.

To accelerate the ripening of cones, spray the plant with a 40% solution of ammonium nitrate at a shoot height of 70 - 80 cm. After this, the first feeding of the hops is carried out with complete mineral fertilizer (45 kg/ha of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). 6-7 days after spraying, the stems are placed on supports - two stems on two supports near each bush. The excess is cut out and removed from the hop field.

When the height of the plants is 3 - 4 m, they are tucked up with the simultaneous application of phosphorus-potassium fertilizers at a dose of 30 - 45 kg / ha d. young shoots that appear on the soil surface, and pinched - the side branches are pinched at a height of up to 2 m from the soil surface, minted - the tops of the stems are cut off above the trellis.

To destroy alfalfa weevils and fleas, plants are sprayed with chlorophos (0.3 - 0.5% solution, 0.3 - 0.5 liters per hop bush). With the appearance of spider mites and aphids on plants, hops are treated with 40% phosphamide (1.5 - 6 l / ha), 25% Anti (1.5 - 6 l / ha) or biological preparations bitoxybacillin (2-4 kg / ha). ha). Against diseases, hops are sprayed with 80% polycarbacin (4-8 kg/ha), 80% zineb (4-8 kg/ha) or 80% cuprosan (4-8 kg/ha), 25% Ridomil (1 - 1.5 kg/ha), etc. Zinc sulfate (3 kg/ha) is used against viral diseases.

Hops harvesting

Harvesting hops manually or using hop harvesting machines (4x-4l or KhMP-1, 6) begins at technical ripeness, when the cones become dense, have a specific aroma, gray color and golden-green or lemon-yellow color of lupulin glands. At this time, hop cones contain the maximum amount of alpha acids, essential oils, and polyphenols. In the main hop-growing areas, harvesting is completed before September 15-29. Delay in harvesting deteriorates the quality of the buds due to the spillage of lupulin grains. Freshly harvested hop cones, which contain up to 80% water, at post-harvest processing points are first subjected to 12 - 14 hours of active ventilation with heated air (up to 30 ° C), due to which their humidity is reduced by 25 - 30%. After ventilation, the hop cones are dried in the drying chambers of special dryers (PCB-750K) with heated air to 40 - 50 ° C, bringing the humidity to 9 - 10%. The dried buds are unloaded from the dryers into dry and dark storage rooms attached to them. To do this, they are scattered on a wooden flooring, first in a layer of 70 - 80 cm with a gradual increase to 1.5-2 m. After cooling, all cones in a 1.5 - 2 meter layer are evenly moistened due to the moisture of the atmospheric air to a humidity of 11-13%. If the atmospheric air is not humid enough, then when resting the buds, lightly moisten them with finely sprayed cold water or use steam generators that supply steam under the layer of hops. To preserve valuable substances in the cones, they are subjected to sulfitation - in a special drying chamber with sulfur gas and ignited sulfur. Aged raw hops are packaged in plastic or jute bags and sent to hop receiving stations or hop factories to be finally brought to the required marketable standards in accordance with the standard.

In the fall, after the hop cones are collected and the stems and leaves have browned and dried, the hops are cut off, removed from the wire and taken away from the hop fields for burning. Plantations are thoroughly cleaned of plant residues, manure or compost (40 - 50 t/ha) and phosphorus-potassium mineral fertilizers (4-4 c/ha of superphosphate, 2-3 c/ha of 40% potassium salt or 1.5 c/ha potassium chloride).

Growing hops is one of the easiest ways to obtain the necessary component for homemade beer at home. Hops are very easy to cultivate, and success is virtually guaranteed for a brewer with an understanding of gardening. In addition, your hops will make your brews unique in their own way.

A little history

The place of origin of hops can most likely be considered Asia, from where it was brought to Europe by the Greeks and Romans. Young shoots of hops were eaten, like asparagus. They began to dry hop cones and use them to hop beer in the Middle Ages; only at the beginning of the 15th century did hops reach England.

Today, commercial hop cultivation is concentrated in the Yakima Valley in central Washington State and the Willamite Valley in Oregon. Hops are also grown in Idaho. Historically, hops were also grown in California, Wisconsin, New York and Massachusetts. In fact, hops are grown everywhere in the States and Europe, so homebrewers have no problems with hops.

What hops need

Growing hops requires good drainage, moderate watering, a sunny location, a trellis for growth and a 120-day frost-free growing season. When dormant, hop roots can withstand harsh winters.

The top portion of hop plants dies back every winter. Hop vines are technically shoots and contain many stiff hairs that cling to the plant's support. Unlike real vines, they do not have tendrils. Rhizomes are a perennial part of hop plants that are found underground.

Over several seasons, hop plants grow a powerful root system and take up quite a lot of space. Someone manages to grow hops in large tubs. You can use kegs instead of tubs.

Only female hop plants are suitable for producing cones suitable for brewing. Hop leaves are not used in brewing. Males cause the seeds to ripen, which is the quality of the hop and reduces bitterness. For this reason, it is not advisable to keep wild plants near your cultivated female plants. Some varieties of English hops are deliberately pollinated to produce a special bouquet.

Where to find hops

Hops are available at many homebrew stores from late winter through early spring.

Rhizomes are the underground part of hop plants, they are vaguely similar to ginger roots (in fact, they are also rhizomes). They can usually be found on sale in the spring. Rhizomes should be stored in a cool place until planting. For best results, it is recommended to wrap the rhizomes in damp newspaper, place them in a plastic bag, and place them in the refrigerator.

The availability of hop varieties may vary from year to year depending on weather conditions. Not all varieties grow equally well in all regions. If you have people in your homebrew club who grow hops, you can gain valuable information about varieties that do not grow well in your area. Most of the rhizomes sold will be the size of a human finger.

For most US homebrewers, varieties selected in the States will be the best bet. This is Willamette, Mt. Hood, Chinook, Nugget and especially Cascade, this variety produces high yields in almost any climate. The success of growing other varieties will vary, but no one is stopping you from trying. Keep in mind that the characteristics of German or English hops will change when grown in another region of the world. In addition, most aroma hop varieties do not like hot summers.

About sprouts

Hops begin to grow after the last frost, so they can be planted as soon as the ground is suitable for cultivation, i.e. from mid-April to mid-May. If you are an experienced gardener, the time to plant hops coincides with the time to plant peas.

Hop sprouts can tolerate severe frosts, but temperatures below -3 °C for 24 hours will damage them.

Location, location, location

For planting, choose a sunny location with good drainage. The hops will need support to grow, this requires twine and a frame of poles. The southern wall of the house is ideal for planting, and the support will be a string lowered from the roof.

Excellent hop grows upward, its vines reach a height of 10 meters. However, the support can be run diagonally or even horizontally. Plan your growing space as best you can, because hops are very decorative.

The soil for planting hops should be loose and rich in organic matter with a pH of 6.5-8. When planting at a depth of 30 cm, add some sand. The holes should be one to one and a half meters apart. Place a little compost or prepared soil for seedlings at the bottom of the hole. Plant the rhizome at a depth of 5-10 centimeters horizontally, but with the roots down, sprinkle with earth, and tamp it down lightly. The hole can be covered with hay. Water thoroughly.

Care

After a couple of weeks, the sprouts will begin to sprout. Commercial growers cut off the first shoots. It is best to select the 3 strongest shoots and cut off the rest. As soon as the shoots have reached a length of 30-45 centimeters, they should be tied up by twisting the shoots onto the twine clockwise. On a sunny spring day, the shoot can grow 15 centimeters per day.

At the beginning of the growing season, hops require a lot of nitrogen. Compost added at planting will be sufficient, but it is better to add more fertilizer if the mature hop leaves are yellow or light green in color. Young leaves are usually lighter in color than older leaves, which should be dark green. Small leaves can also be a result of a lack of nitrogen or lighting.

Plants need to be watered quite often; water should not linger in the ground. If you have a dry climate, then it is worth organizing a system with automatic watering. To avoid downy mildew, do not wet the leaves when watering.

Cones

Hops have few enemies, they are as rare as IPA lovers. Rabbits (hares) and deer love young hop sprouts, and chickens are also ready to peck it.

Aphids, spider mites, and Japanese beetles (a relative of the May beetle) can cause trouble. When growing hops, only low-toxic insecticides can be used. Ladybugs can be used against aphids (they are sometimes sold in garden stores). You can also use a light soap solution. The danger from insects is most significant early in the growing season. In addition, hops usually don't grow in your native area, so there aren't many hunters for them.

After the summer equinox, hops switch their energies from growing greenery to growing flowers and then buds. The yield depends on the age of the plant and growing conditions. Don't be discouraged if only a couple of buds ripen in the first season. In the first 2 years, the hop plant forms a powerful root system.

Once flowering begins, the plant requires more phosphorus. Spring compost should probably be enough. However, adding a little phosphate-containing fertilizer does not fit. If the lower leaves look healthy, then feeding should be very light. Once the shoots have reached a length of 3-4.5 meters, some commercial hop growers trim the leaves to a height of 1.2 meters to improve ventilation.

Ripe

Hops can be harvested at the end of August or at the beginning of September. It's not easy to tell if the buds are ripe, but here are some clues.

Color
The color of a mature cone should be light yellow-green, and the scales of the cone should begin to flatten. The bract (the leaf in the axil of which the flower develops) should be brown.

Lupulin glands
Dots of yellow, pollen-like powder should be visible.

To the touch
When you crush the bud there should be a slight dry, tissue paper feeling. The pine cone should spring back slightly when you open your fingers. If the bud is wet and dense, it is not ready. There should also be some lupulin left on your fingers. You should notice a specific hop aroma

Ripening takes a couple of weeks, so you can collect the cones gradually. To do this, you will need a ladder - after all, you will only have to collect mature grapes. In production, hop shoots are cut off entirely, and the cones are collected mechanically. You too can use this scheme. This is more convenient than collecting cones at a height of 4-5 meters. As a drawback, there will be a marriage with unripe cones.

Drying

After harvesting, the cones need to be dried. Undried buds will quickly dry out and become useless for brewing. Manufacturers dry hops in so-called oasts (oast is an oven for drying hops or malt). Homebrewers have several methods for drying hops.

You can use a home dryer for fruits and mushrooms. Hop producers dry it at an elevated temperature of 60-66°C, this is not very correct, since some of the aromatic oils evaporate. A compromise between quality and quantity. The home brewer should not spoil his product; the best temperature for drying will be in the range of 49-54°C. Drying in these conditions will take most of the day. Drying should be completed when the central stem of the pine cone becomes brittle.

The cones can also be dried in the oven at low temperature. You can also dry hop cones at room temperature, spreading them in a thin layer on newspaper. In this way, the cones will dry in 2-3 days at a temperature of about 30°C.

When the buds are dry, they should still be the same light yellow-green color, almost weightless. The scales will look like tissue paper. In this state, the pine cones should be thoroughly crushed, placed in a plastic bag and placed in the freezer. There they will wait for their cooking.

The shoots dry out and die after harvest. Cut off the dry hop vines, leaving 3 centimeters of the stem above the ground. Dry stems can be used as decoration for New Year's holidays or as compost. Mulch the plant holes and place straw on top. Now is the best time to fertilize your plants.

Add a couple of buckets of compost under each plant, creating a small bed 5-8 centimeters high above the soil level. You can carefully mix the humus with the top layer of soil.

Late autumn is a good time to transplant or plant hops.

Dig up the hops, select the healthiest parts of the rhizome, those that are thick and as long as a finger. Place some soil and large sawdust (what remains after the electric planer) in a plastic bag along with the rhizomes. Store in a dark, cool place such as a basement or refrigerator. Hops are planted in early autumn.

Bitter fruits

The hops that are sold are analyzed for alpha acid content, so the brewer knows how much hop to add to achieve the desired level of bitterness. Unfortunately, the home brewer cannot determine the bitterness of his hops. You can only roughly rely on the % alpha acids in commercial hops. This indicator can vary significantly depending on the area of ​​growth and season.

You can do a test brew with your own hops and store-bought ones for rough comparison. Many homebrewers use their hops just for flavor and aroma—fresh homemade hops will outshine any commercial hops.

Hop growing in Russia.
Is there beer, are there hops?

It's no secret that the key to delicious beer is clean water, high-quality malt, aromatic hops and the caring hands of the brewer.
If barley, which is successfully cultivated in Russia, can, if desired, be replaced with corn, rice, wheat and other crops, then hop cones are an indispensable brewing product.
Alpha acids contained in hop cones give bitterness to beer, and essential oils give it a specific aroma.

Undoubtedly, the foamy drink is one of the most popular. Even those who are not consumers know about this ancient drink, but how many have thought about where hops are grown in our country, what varieties are used for brewing and the state of this industry at present?

Ask the editor a question

In Russia, hops have been cultivated since time immemorial. Already in the 10th century, the concept of hop growing was introduced. Mostly hop farms were located in Ukraine and the RSFSR - Chuvash, Mari ASSR, Kirov, Belgorod, Voronezh regions, Altai Territory.
In the second half of the 19th century, in addition to domestic varieties, Bavarian, English and American varieties were common. Khmelniks were located in Tver, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, Kostroma provinces, Chuvashia. The first mentions of hops in Guslitsy (on the borders of the Moscow and Ryazan provinces) date back to the 16th century. The guslyak variety was grown there, which was successfully used in Russia and exported abroad.
In 1976, the area of ​​hop fields in the USSR was about 6 thousand hectares with a yield of up to 22 c/ha. Hop growing at that time was characterized by a wide variety of varieties.
Less than 50 years ago, a third of the hops on our planet grew in the vast expanses of the Soviet Union!
And this hop was valued both in Russia and abroad.

And now about what we have now in this industry after all the reforms and transformations.
Unlike malt, for the production of which large Russian companies, as well as international malt companies, successfully use barley grown in Russian regions as part of their own programs, hops are used predominantly, and for the most part exclusively from foreign origin.
Global hop producers are not represented, and there is practically no processing industry as such.

The areas that are currently used for hop fields in Chuvashia are incomparable with what it was, not to mention the varietal diversity of cultivated hops and technical equipment.

Today, the main producers of hops are the Chuvash Republic 82%, the Mari El Republic 6.5% and the Altai Territory 3.3%.

In 2013 alone, hops worth $23,805,506.73 were imported into Russia.

The catastrophic production deficit in Russia, the lack of varietal diversity, the rise in the dollar exchange rate and the focus on import substitution, the potential and vast expanses of our land gave us impetus and inspired us to the idea of ​​​​reviving domestic hop growing.
We believe that our hops can become a worthy alternative to imported products, and the choice of varieties we produce will give a serious impetus to the formation of a new vision for the development of this industry.

Project news

We inform you that this year the Razdolye company launched a new unique experimental project.
This spring we plan to plant hop rhizomes at our experimental site.
13 varieties will participate in the experiment, including 11 foreign ones.

Hops are a herbaceous perennial of the hemp family with climbing stems reaching 7 - 8 meters in length. The plant has both male and female flowers, which fade 10–15 days after blooming. Hops bloom throughout the summer, and its fruit cones ripen in July - September. Liana does not lose its decorative effect for 20 - 30 years.

Hop vines usually used for vertical gardening. However, it should be taken into account that before winter, the above-ground mass of leaves and branches dies off completely every year, only the thickened underground rhizomes of the hop remain. In the spring, after the snow melts, hops begin to actively grow.

It is best to plant hops in semi-shaded areas of the garden, protected from northern winds. In sunny places, hop plantings are more susceptible to disease, attack by aphids and other leaf-eating insects.

For growing hops, permeable fertile loam with sufficient moisture, but not waterlogged, is best suited.

Planting hops

In autumn, holes for planting hops, 0.5 m deep, are filled half with manure and covered with earth on top. In spring, hop seedlings or cuttings are planted in them. Cuttings are harvested from plants 3–8 years old. Seedlings are planted at a distance of 1 meter. In a vertical position, hop stems quickly climb up the supports; growth in the horizontal direction is much slower. To achieve a continuous green wall, hop seedlings should be planted at a distance of 2 meters.

Hops care

In the first half of summer, hop vines grow so rapidly that this plant is the first to entwine pergolas and supports, far ahead of lemongrass, virgin grapes, and honeysuckle honeysuckle. During the day, the hops grow by several centimeters. As soon as the shoots grow 40 - 50 cm, a support is built for them.

Growing plants as a business

In the first year of planting, weak shoots of the plant should be removed, leaving the strong ones.

Caring for plantings involves timely weeding, periodic loosening and watering during dry periods. In the first 3 years after planting, to ensure fast and good growth, you should regularly water and feed the hops with a solution of complex mineral fertilizer. Fertilizers should be alternated: fertilizer is applied to the soil once, then foliar fertilization is applied to the stems and leaves (fertilizer should be diluted in half concentration). The foliar feeding method is also carried out in the case of nitrogen starvation of the leaves, when they become light and small; in the case of a lack of potassium, the shape of the leaves becomes convex, and the fact that the plant lacks phosphorus elements is indicated by the bronze color of the leaf.

When growing hops it is necessary to ensure that the roots do not grow beyond the planting boundaries. You can use limiters or bury the remains of slate, metal sheet, etc. to a depth of half a meter.

Pests: May be affected by aphids and other leaf-eating insects. As a control, spray with infusion of bitter wormwood or use any insecticides.

If the insect population has increased significantly, then you can get rid of them using strong insecticidal preparations. When spraying, you need to take into account that aphid colonies mainly accumulate on the underside of the leaves.

Hop propagation

Hops are propagated by root suckers, division of rhizomes, and less often by seeds.

When dividing, the rhizomes are separated from the main roots of the hop using a shovel without digging up the bush.

The division of the rhizome is carried out in the spring, when new shoots have already appeared.

Rhizome cuttings of hops are cut into pieces of 12 - 14 cm, which must have 2 - 3 pairs of buds. The survival rate of annual roots with a diameter of 2 cm is significantly higher. Harvested cuttings are planted at an angle. If planting is carried out a little later, then the cut cuttings should be stored in damp moss or sand.

The annual species of hop is propagated by seeds. In May, seeds are sown directly at the planting site.

Useful tips, educational articles for summer residents and gardeners. Planting, care, harvesting. Of course, there is a lot of information about flowers, berries, and mushrooms. On the pages of the website "Useful Trava.ru"

At the Beer Industry exhibition, which is currently taking place at the All-Russian Exhibition Center, Russian products are represented by dozens of brands. However, it is Russian only in the place of production - made on German equipment according to German recipes under the supervision of German technologists. And from German raw materials. Brewers would be happy to use domestic hops and malt, but there is no quality supply. Why - Denig correspondents found out ALEXEY KHODORYCH And VALERY KAJAYA.
History of the fall
Every year, Russian brewers consume about 9 thousand tons of hops, which cost them, offhand, $60-70 million. Of this, Russian hop growers get no more than $500 thousand, the rest goes to Germany, the Czech Republic, the USA and China.
What, hops don’t grow in Russia? It’s growing, and how. In the traditional hop-growing region - Chuvashia - in Soviet times, more than 3 thousand tons of hops were grown per year. In addition, it was cultivated in Altai, the Komi Republic, and the Kirov and Bryansk regions. In general, there were hops. And not bad at all. Chuvash, for example, inferior to European ones in terms of alpha acid content (an important component that gives beer bitterness and suppresses the vital activity of microorganisms), was famous for its so-called aromatic varieties - they were added to the blend not for the sake of alpha acid, but for aroma. Let's say, the "Early" variety, according to people from the Institute of Hop Growing, is still considered throughout the world one of the most successful aromatic varieties.
The period of Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign was fatal for domestic hop growing - out of four thousand hectares, only two thousand remained in Chuvashia. The anti-alcohol company choked, alcohol production returned to normal, but the former raw material base was no longer there - and brewers began to buy hops abroad. The first imported hops were Chinese, they are the cheapest (in China today about 13% of the world's hop harvest is harvested, ahead of it are only Germany and the USA - 30% each).
However, Far Eastern hops are close in properties to wild hops. The beer made from it was so bitter that even unpretentious Russians refused to drink it, especially since there was already an abundance of beer on sale from Germany, the Czech Republic, Holland, and Belgium - both canned, bottled, and draft. The unclaimed hop fields didn’t even have to be cut down—they simply stopped caring for them. The vines dried up, and now most of the plantations are skeletons - rows of pillars, and potatoes are grown in between the rows.
As for Chuvashia, in 1999 1.8 thousand tons of hops were harvested there, and in 2001 - 397 tons. This year it seems there will be even less. In general, there is a clear decline in the industry; the temporary increase in demand for domestic hops after August 1998 does not count.

Beer conspiracy
Hops are a perennial plant. It begins to bear fruit only three years after planting; over the years, hop plants lose their productivity, and the quality of the hops also decreases. And if you don’t invest in new plantings, hop plants will simply die over time. Which is exactly what is happening.
Meanwhile, in Russia there is a rapid growth of the beer industry and, accordingly, an increase in beer consumption. According to forecasts from the Business Analytics agency, next year Russians will spend more on beer than on vodka—approximately $6.5 billion. This has never happened in the history of the country. And at first glance, it seems that domestic hop growing has become a victim of sabotage.
Today, the largest brewing companies operating in Russia—Carlsberg Breweries/BBH, Sun Interbrew, Ochakovo, Krasny Vostok, Stepan Razin, Baltika, Amstar—produce more than 50% of all beer. The equipment at the factories is foreign, the requirements for semi-finished products are very high, which is why the hops are bought imported - not pressed cones, but granules or concentrate. Actually, most other enterprises, even those operating on old equipment, buy Chuvash hops only to add it to foreign ones.
Andrey Kuzmin, Head of the supply department of the Ostankino brewery: Chuvash hops account for 20% of our consumption. Our equipment is not new, but it is impossible to work purely on Chuvash hops. I know that at one time many varieties were grown there, but now it seems (at least to me) that there is only one variety - just Chuvash. That is, some hop from Chuvashia. Of course, this doesn't suit us.
The Ministry of Agriculture of Chuvashia, as well as the majority of Chuvash hop growers, really see some kind of economic conspiracy in the actions of the beer giants - supposedly, contracts with Western suppliers include a clause according to which the beer manufacturer undertakes to use only, for example, German hops.
There certainly is a similar point. True, not in the contract, but in the technical documentation of the equipment. And it does not stipulate “nationality”, but the quality of raw materials.
Nikolay Gutlunin, Vice President of the Ochakovo company: In principle, such a point cannot exist. Yes, we would be happy to buy Russian hops if they were of proper quality, if only because they would obviously be cheaper than Western ones. Unfortunately, current domestic hops are not suitable for use in modern production.
The situation was described approximately in the same way in the companies Sun Interbrew, Baltika, Ochakovo, Krasny Vostok, Stepan Razin and Amstar.
The situation with malt confirms that they are probably not lying. More and more Russian producers are building their own malthouses, the raw materials for which are sometimes Russian barley and other grains. Simply mastering the cultivation of barley and the production of malt from it is much easier than establishing a similar cycle in the case of hops.
In fact, the only consumers of Chuvash hops are small regional breweries on an urban scale. However, according to experts, the share of such manufacturers will steadily decline - to 10%. Accordingly, cones pressed into briquettes will soon completely lose their consumer.
The situation appears to be a stalemate. Government officials seem to understand that hops need to be cultivated, but they can’t do anything - budget capabilities are limited. The federal program "Hop of Russia", which operated from 1995 to 2000, did not bear the expected fruits. The new industry support program for hop growing, which will be adopted before the end of this year, will apparently also be of little use.
What to do?

Patience and work
Many regional leaders today declare their interest in the development of hop growing. (For example, the head of the Altai Republic, Mikhail Lapshin, spoke about this as one of the priority tasks at the beginning of the year - immediately after his election.) However, so far only a few private investors are involved in hops. For example, the Chuvashkhmelagroprom company, starting in 2000, managed to attract about 11 million rubles into the industry - the money was allocated mainly by private Moscow companies.
7 million rubles from the raised amount went to modernize production at the Oktyabrsky Hop Plant - hop purification lines and Polish equipment for the production of pellets were installed there. The remaining money was spent on providing eight hop-growing farms in Chuvashia with seedlings, fuel, chemical protective equipment, etc. - that is, in fact, on growing hops themselves. However, this experience can hardly be called successful.
Valery Komarov-Zelinsky, General Director of CJSC "Chuvashkhmelagroprom": Our hop complex can produce 1.5 thousand tons of pellets and 900 tons of pressed hops per year. Taking into account the actual volumes of hop cultivation in Chuvashia, we budgeted for processing at least 250 tons per year - in this case, our project would fully pay for itself within 2-2.5 years. But, as luck would have it, the drought has been raging for three years now, and hops love wet summers. The overwhelming majority of the hop fields on the farms are old, so the harvest is very small and even less comes to us for processing. Taking into account harvests, the low demand for ordinary pressed buds (and they are often pressed on the farms themselves) approximately coincided with the low supply. As a result, most of the hops were sold the old fashioned way, almost in bales. And in 2001 we processed only 60 tons. Our granules are no worse than foreign ones, but their production volume is vanishingly small.
Today, Chuvashkhmelagroprom, with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Chuvashia, is working to restore hop fields: German bitter varieties and domestic bitter-aromatic varieties are planted. In addition, it is planned to create a MTS equipped with all the necessary hop-growing equipment. However, there is no need to expect serious returns here either. Valery Komarov-Zelinsky: Everything we do on our premises will lead to an increase in yield by a maximum of 30 tons in the coming years. But there is still not enough money for more.
It must be said that the situation with hops is very similar to the situation with flax (see “Money” #36) - there is a huge unrealized potential. But there is a difference. Flax is an export product, with great sales prospects and, accordingly, very interesting for investors.
On the contrary, those few companies that, like Chuvashkhmelagroprom, tried to work with hop growers were disappointed along the way. Vladimir Shurygin, Director of the Vityaz Trading House of the Vityaz Brewing Company: We made advance payments for growing hops in Chuvashia, but for two years now we have not been doing this. Because then they bring you something completely different from what they promised, and do what you want.
However, the brewing company "Bouquet of Chuvashia", under whose wing two hop farms operate today in the Tsivilsky district, has achieved some success - but this does not change the weather.
Valery Komarov-Zelinsky: I can’t say that the same bankers or large beer producers, who are capable of significant injections into the industry, have a negative attitude towards this idea. Everyone understands that one way or another, hop growing will overcome today’s sad stage - if there are resources, they will be used sooner or later. But who should I give the money to? Directly to farms? They'll steal it. Companies like ours? But we have been on the market recently, in fact since 2001, and so far we cannot boast of any particular success. Perhaps the attitude will change after some time and, for example, we will become the point of growth, relying on which we will be able to change the situation for the better.
Not only Chuvashkhmelagroprom, but also the Khmel company, whose founders are the Association of Hop Growers of Russia, a number of hop farms in Chuvashia and Mari El, as well as the Institute of Hop Growing, are announcing themselves as a possible point of growth. Here, investors are also ready to present a number of business plans, for example, an investment project for the “construction and commissioning of an enterprise for the deep processing of hops with a capacity of 500 tons per year.” But Russia still doesn’t have that much hops.
In general, we have the following: a) a market with a volume of $60-70 million per year; b) Russian brewers who are ready to buy Russian hops if they are of high quality; c) land where hops have grown well from time immemorial and can continue to grow just as successfully; d) people who know how to grow hops.
Someday all this, like a puzzle, may come together into a good picture!