John Coleman of Coleman Agriculture has provided us with the latest crop update from the hop yards of the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Despite the Pacific Northwest heat wave earlier in the season, the quality of the burrs and forming cones look great! This is a testament to the resiliency of the hop varieties and the growers. Concerns about the impact on yield appear to be mild, and growers will have clearer picture of the overall crop volume as we get closer to harvest. Harvest windows are top of mind for growers as they monitor the hop bines for growth and cone formation. The extreme heat somewhat slowed the timing of maturity compared to the average year as the hop bines rested to conserve energy during the intense heat, which could slightly alter the ideal harvest pick dates. YCH and growers will work together to determine the best harvest windows to help mitigate any effects from the heat. It is an exciting time throughout the Pacific Northwest, as any burrs will soon be cones which means harvest is just around the corner! YCH will continue to provide reports on the growing season and harvest directly from the folks who know the crop, the fields, and the wild ride of what a growing season can entail -- our growers.

Good morning everyone, my name is John Coleman. My position is senior perennial crops manager here at Coleman Agriculture in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. We grow a lot of different hops for Yakima Chief. Today we are in a Simcoe® field that’s about a six or seven field. As you can see there are some nice cones shaping up. There’s a decent size to them and there’s also some burrs. There is a little bit of unevenness, and we attribute that to the intense heat we had about early, late June, so almost a month ago now. It’s definitely affected the crop in the sense of maturity, it looks like it will ding the yield a little bit. Some of the challenges we’re facing because of the heat is of course keeping enough water in the field and making sure the hops aren’t stressed anymore. But overall, we are pretty excited about the quality. I think it’s going to be more interesting about the yield and probably there might be some questions about the best time to pick. Those will be things we will have to talk about as a community as far as Yakima Chief and decide if there’s some wiggle room on harvest dates. Those are probably our biggest challenges going forward. As far as Simcoe®, we think that it’s probably going to be average for us this year. When you get to some of the other varieties we raise, Citra®, Mosaic®, Sabro®, and some public varieties we also raise, everything looks pretty good. Overall, with all of the heat we have gone through with all of the adversity we have gone through with that, I think we are in pretty good shape.