The Dauenhauer hop picker is a hulking piece of machinery, standing 36 feet tall and comprising a maze of hooks, screens and conveyer belts.

Crosby Hop Farm, of Woodburn, Ore., recently finished installing the new mechanical harvester, which separates hop cones from the bine while filtering out leafy debris. Though it is quiet now, it will roar to life as harvest begins across the Willamette Valley in August.

“We’d like to see 400 acres run through this machine,” said Blake Crosby, CEO of Crosby Hops, speaking to a group of farmers, brewers and industry representatives during the annual Oregon Hop Field Day on July 21.

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For decades, the event — organized by the Oregon Hop Commission — has been an opportunity to highlight innovative technology and research aimed at helping growers produce better hops used to make unique and exceptional beers.

Michelle Palacios, administrator for the Oregon Hop Commission, said the event serves as an unofficial kickoff to the late summer harvest season.

“It’s really just a highlight of our year,” Palacios said. “Because once field day hits, everyone’s mind turns toward harvest.”

Emphasizing research

Hops are Oregon’s 16th most valuable agricultural commodity, earning $74.8 million in 2020, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

This year’s field day included four stops, with an emphasis on research related to breeding new commercial hop varieties, herbicide trials and registering labels for pesticides so they can be sprayed safely in hops and other specialty crops.

The timing of field day also coincides with the early bloom period for hops, allowing participants to assess crop yield and quality, Palacios said.

“We’re able to evaluate yield at this point, and get a feel for what our crop could potentially look like based on the cone set,” she said.

Perhaps more than anything, Palacios said the field day is a chance for farmers to visit with their neighbors, learn from one another and make new connections with brewers.

“I think that, beyond just the education and technology transfer, it’s just promoting the idea that we are a community of hop growers, and we all have the same goal of making Oregon successful,” she said.

Stop 1: F&B Farms and Nursery

The afternoon began with a tour of the hop propagation greenhouse at F&B Farms and Nursery in Aurora, where workers hovered over thousands of small potted plants.

Michael Lamberson, the farm’s propagation manager, said they produce over 30 varieties of hops, which are sold to growers across the Pacific Northwest.

Parent plants are sourced from the National Clean Plant Network at Washington State University, which are certified free of harmful diseases such as apple mosaic virus or hop stunt viroid. Crews then take cuttings from the parents to grow inside the spacious greenhouse.

“It happens very fast in a greenhouse environment,” Lamberson said.

Following the tour, the group gathered for a presentation from Dani Lightle, an associate professor of practice at Oregon State University’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center, whose research focuses on expanding pesticide registrations for specialty crops.

Lightle works closely with the IR-4 Project, established by the USDA in 1963. The program is intended to fill the gap in available pesticides for specialty crops, since most companies focus on labels for larger acreage commodities such as corn and soybeans.

“That’s where they’re going to make their money back in sales,” Lightle said.

Under IR-4, the normal fees for registering pesticide labels — which can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars — are waived for specialty crops, with university researchers performing the fieldwork and residue tests needed to determine appropriate rates of application.

Lightle said she is working on a pair of IR-4 trials for hops, including one for the weedkiller Quizalofop and one for the fungicide Mefentrifluconazole.

The Oregon Hop Commission also provided $10,000 this year to help Lightle to purchase a small mechanical hop picker, which was on display outside the greenhouse.

Previously, Lightle said she had been picking hop cones by hand, filling 5-gallon buckets.

“This has really sped up the process,” she said. “I’m grateful for (the commission) and their support.”

Stop 2: Stauffer Farms

Standing in the hot July sun, the group of about 50 people gathered next at Stauffer Farms in nearby Hubbard where Marcelo Moretti, an associate professor and weed scientist at OSU, gave an update on several industry-funded studies.

Moretti said his goal is to learn the “do’s and don’ts” of certain herbicides for hops. He urged growers to make sure their sprayers are calibrated properly to avoid potential damage.

“If a sprayer is not calibrated correctly and you apply a higher rate than you’re allowed, then you’re going to have problems with crop damage,” Moretti said. “Those are very visible.”

Moretti and the group paced among rows of bines hanging from 18-foot trellises, showing how and where damage to the plants can occur if the chemicals are used incorrectly.

If crop damage is particularly bad, Moretti said it can prompt a company to withdraw a label’s registration entirely, as happened with an herbicide manufactured by BASF Agricultural Solutions called Prowl, which was being used in blueberries.

Though damage occurred on the East Coast, Moretti said they lost the label nationwide, affecting growers in Oregon and Washington.

“We were a victim of this whole process,” he said. “It will take years for us to bring it back, if we even can. That’s why these types of events are so important.”

As they walked along, brewers occasionally paused to pluck hop cones from the bines, rubbing them in their hands to smell the aroma.

Sam Pecoraro, brewmaster at Von Ebert Brewing in Portland, said he is paying close attention to the quality of this year’s crop given the heat, which has caused some varieties to bloom early. If you have early blooming hops, then they hang on the bine for longer which can impact flavor and aroma, Pecoraro said.

“That’s where talking to farmers comes in,” he said. “That’s why I’m out here today.”

Stop 3: 4B Farms

The next stop, 4B Farms in Mt. Angel, plays a critical role in the breeding and development of new publicly available hop varieties.

This is where John Henning, a research geneticist for the USDA Agricultural Research Service, conducts early trials of hop crosses he’s developed in the lab.

The USDA’s hop breeding program is one of the oldest in the nation, tracing its roots back to 1930. Its mission is to produce hop varieties that are drought and disease-resistant, yield better, accentuate flavors and grow in a wide variety of environments.

Henning, who is based in Corvallis, starts the process by consulting with farmers, brewers and merchants from across the country to assess their needs.

“Obviously, aroma and flavor is number one from the brewer’s standpoint,” Henning said. “From the grower’s standpoint, they’re very much interested in yield and disease-resistance. I look at the hop cone structure as well … I’m looking for a hop cone that is tight, compact and won’t fall apart going through a picker.”

He then sits down with his extensive lineup of hop genetics, creating crosses with the desired traits.

Seeds from those crosses are then collected and grown in greenhouses. Varieties that look promising are selected and planted in “single-hill” plots at 4B Farms, with rows spaced 7.5 feet apart, to see how they perform.

There are now 33 potential varieties in the single-hill trial stage at 4B Farms, Henning said. Those that perform well are analyzed further in “advanced” and “elite” stages, which involve growing in different areas around the Northwest and brewing small pilot batches of beer.

In all, it takes around 13-15 years for a variety to be released commercially, Henning said. Less than 1% make the final cut.

”We need everybody’s help and input,” Henning said.

Stop 4: Crosby Hop Farm

Crosby Hops marked the final stop of the day, where Blake Crosby showed off the metallic silver and yellow-trimmed Dauenhauer picker.

“This is actually a more traditional technology, but we think it does the best job in terms of quality,” he said.

The farm already had one other mechanical picker, where workers harvest crops grown around Woodburn and St. Paul, Ore. Crosby said they installed the second machine to keep pace with growing acreage — the farm has 650 acres of hops, and plans to expand by about 50% over the next five years.

“Our brand continues to grow and evolve,” he said.

Overall, U.S. hop acreage has actually decreased by 8% from 2022, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. In Washington, the largest hop-producing state, 38,993 acres were strung for harvest this season, down 9% from a year ago.

Idaho growers strung 8,832 acres, down 5%, and Oregon hop growers strung 6,893 acres, down 11%.

Beer sales soften

Ben Edmunds, brewmaster at Breakside Brewery in Portland and president of the Oregon Brewers Guild, said the decline is due in part to declining beer sales nationally.

”As the beer industry goes, so does the hop industry, and vice-versa,” Edmunds said. “The two of us are really two sides of the same coin.”

Data from the U.S. Brewers Association, a trade group representing 5,400 craft breweries, shows total beer sales dipped 3.1% in 2022. Craft beer sales were mostly flat after recovering slightly from the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Edmunds said the drop in beer consumption can be traced to an increase in consumption of other beverages, such as hard seltzer, wine and other spirits.

Studies have shown that Gen-Z is also drinking less than previous generations mainly due to an increased awareness of the dangers and effects of alcohol. Edmunds said it is becoming more imperative than ever for craft brewers to be as efficient as possible, while marketing to a more diverse and wide-ranging consumer base.

As beer sales have softened, Edmunds said that has trickled down to the hop yard where farmers are cutting back to avoid flooding the market with hops.

The number of craft breweries, meanwhile, continues to rise. There are now 9,552 craft breweries in the U.S., compared to 4,803 in 2015.

For the first time, Edmunds said those businesses — particularly small brewers — may be experiencing rough waters for the first time on the supply side.

”As with any reorganization, there’s going to be some short-term pain because of that,” he said.