Hop Increase

The 2013 hop season was a good one for northwest producers but a lot of it was due to unforeseen circumstances according to Ann George with USA Hops.

GEORGE: One of the problems we've had the last few years is that our production of Alpha worldwide has exceeded the demand.

That has been the case for quite a few years since hops can be stored for a long time but George says that the disparity between demand and supply has been coming back to a bit more normal.

GEORGE: But the interesting this is Germany has more acres than we have but with the drought that they had throughout Europe this past year - and Germany also had some problems with hail, their yields were down substantially this year so we exceeded their production both in terms of Alpha even though we have had the shift into some of the aroma varieties, we produced 46% of the worlds Alpha this year compared to Germany with 33%.

She says yields were good.

GEORGE: We had good average yields this year and a good quality crop and I think that has been a real plus for the marketplace particularly with so much of Europe having a short crop this year. We expect acreage to increase this coming year. There will be a continued shift in varieties in existing plantings but we also expect a few new acres to come online.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.