When You Attend a Beer and Hops Class, You Don't Expect to Talk about This:

There's a lot to consider when starting a farm business. For months, I've been filling my head with the names of plant varieties, soil compositions, water tables and irrigation techniques. Not long ago, I'd have guessed the lupulin gland was something that swelled when a werewolf got the flu. And isn't a rhizome a kind of Transformer?

To keep my ignorance at bay, I've jumped at the opportunity to attend classes and to talk to anyone with experience growing plants. But farming is unique. Along with weather, bugs, funguses, weeds, and water, there's the actual business to consider. Sales, budgets and (gulp) taxes. I'm still learning so my only advice there is to start keeping your receipts and get a good accountant.

And there's something else. Farming affects the environment. Farmers take from the Earth, and they don't always give the right stuff back. The Gulf of Mexico, right near the Mississippi Delta, is home to the second largest dead zone in the world, and it's caused by modern farming.

I bring this up because while you're considering cover crops and manure, the government is considering what you're putting in, and on, the soil.

Frankly, it was a surprise to hear Jane Larson and Jennifer Statz, both from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection, talk about safe pesticide and herbicide use at the UW Extension's Hop Production for the Wisconsin Craft Beer Industry seminar. I'd never considered using much of them, but chemicals are the lynchpin of modern farming. And with downy mildew, powdery mildew, spider mites and aphids all looking to feed on your humulus lupulus bines, they are often necessary.

So, what did they say? Well, if you plan to hire workers, or your in-laws and cousins, then the Worker Protection Standard applies to your farm. See the link to the EPA's website for the nuts and bolts of the standard, but the gist of it as it applies to hop farmers is this:

1. Keep information on pesticides at a central location — have an EPA WPS poster, documentation of pesticide applications (time, location, description, date, restricted-entry interval). 
2. Provide worker training — check the EPA WPS website for these materials. 
3. Keep decontamination supplies accessible — this includes water, soap, single-use towels, clean coveralls. 

A more comprehensive summary can be found on pages 15 and 16 of the WPS handbook:

There's a whole lot more to complying than just the few points I listed. That's why I suggest you check the links I embedded in the post. 

It's not as much fun as thinking about your hops filling a brew kettle, but it's necessary. I hope it helps. 

Thanks for reading. 

What Wisconsin Craft Brewers Want — Notes from the Hop Production for the Craft Brew Industry Seminar

Bo Belanger is a bald, barrel-chested Detroiter who had one message for the room full of hop farmers: Grow more product. 

Belanger, the brewmaster and owner of South Shore Brewery in Ashland, Wis., spoke as bottles of his Inland Sea Pilsener were eagerly gulped by more than one-hundred thirsty growers at the UW Extension's Fifth Annual Hop Production for the Craft Brew Industry Seminar at Great Dane Pub in Wausau. With a PowerPoint presentation trotting along behind him, Belanger acknowledged the hurdles facing the state's fledgling hop industry — high startup costs, labor-intensive production and a general lack of knowledge about a plant that's in high demand across the nation. But he added that there is a lot of capacity to meet the demand, if farmers organize effectively and grow a quality product. Wisconsin brewers want locally grown hops, but they won't sacrifice their their standards for proximity, he said. 

"Do brewers want your hops?" Belanger said. "Yeah, we want them! But you gotta make good stuff. Just because it's local, doesn't mean it's quality."

Belanger compared the state's hop industry to the craft brewers of 30 years ago. Hop farmers lack the organization and scale of today's brewers, not to mention their political clout. 

With that in mind, Belanger offered the following suggestions to Wisconsin hop farmers: 

• Organize and share information — Growers should use each other's knowledge to further the industry. Don't go-it-alone. Band together and help one another. 
• Be prepared to get political — Be aware of your political clout and use it. Much like craft brewers — who attract tourists to the state, support agriculture and feed the tax base — the hop industry has similar benefits to Wisconsin. Make sure your legislators know this. 
• Quality is essential — Belanger buys hops based on the price and the quality. It's a safe bet that other growers do too. Strive for consistency and the best product possible. 
• Brewers need hops all year, not just in the fall —This makes pelletizing essential. 
• Know the competition — Growers in the Pacific Northwest.

Keep checking The Hometown Hopyard blog for more tips and highlights from the conference. I'll be posting all week. 

Cheers and Happy St. Patrick's Day. 

We're Sun Dog Hops, pleasure to meet you

In a few weeks, about 1,000 hop rhizomes will land on my doorstep and the reality of my long, strange journey from newspaper reporter to farmer will have officially begun. Like a first-time father, I've been planning for my baby hops to arrive for nine months. I've read the books, attended the classes and I finally feel (at least a little bit) prepared for this latest adventure.

Still, as I look out my window in the first week of March, it's obvious that while my rhizomes may be ready, my slice of Wisconsin turf may not be. There's about two feet of snow on the field, and much more than that in some of the drifts:

In anticipation of the long, fun growing season to come, I'm launching this blog. I hope to make it a place for learning about hops, craft beer and life on the farm. I also want it to serve as a record of my mistakes and successes in building a hop yard. That way, my dear reader, you won't be doomed to repeat them.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, "So, who is this guy and why do I care what he thinks?" You might also add, "What business does a reporter have farming hops?" Or even, "What the hell is a hop?"

I guess a little introduction is in order: Call me Adam. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse and nothing particular to interest me in the south, I thought I would move about a little and see the snowy part of the world (and steal from Melville). With my wife, Morgan, and my yellow dog, Emma, we purchased a 40-acre farm in River Falls, Wis. With its tin roofs, red barn, strands of crisp looking birch trees, and fields blanketed in prairie grass and wildflowers, the farm was beautiful in its own right:

It had been a labor of love for the previous owners, and so it would be for us. We decided that to live on land and to not improve upon it was, in the most basic sense, wrong. And what better way to improve upon a farm than to fill it with plants and animals again?

The granary, which once housed lawn furniture and an old wood stove, is now the home of three rowdy chickens (two of whom may actually be roosters). In the spring, an additional 20 egg-layers will be moving in. Our field, which seemed to only be growing ticks last summer, will soon be planted with corn or soybeans courtesy of a neighbor-farmer. My wife has picked out a half-acre spot near the composter we built last autumn to start her vegetable garden.

And then there is me. With the help of my father-in-law, whose expertise in all things I'm not naturally good at makes this venture possible, there will soon be 100 hop poles standing in the field. Felled from the pines growing on our property, the poles will be the sturdy bones to support our climbing bines of Centennial, Cascade and Nugget hops. It's going to be a beautiful sight to see.

Sun Dog Hops, we're calling it. We'll be growing, drying and packaging our locally-raised hops for your locally-brewed beer. Why sun dog? A sun dog, or parhelion, is a luminous ring or halo around the sun during the winter months which forms when sunlight reflects off of ice particles in the air. They are  beautiful, majestic and unique to the north, all qualities that we hope to instill in our hops. I spotted this one in January and it inspired the name for our business. You can almost imagine the halo giving a warm embrace to our future hop yard on a very cold (20 below zero) morning:

Pretty, huh? So check back here for information about hops, brewing and for tips of setting up a yard. I'll also strive to share any information I gather from hop conferences and events. Coming soon: highlights from the Wisconsin Extension's Hop Production in Craft Brew Industry class, which was held at Great Dane Pub in Wausau on March 1.

Thanks for reading.

Adam