From Vol. 6, No. 8, December 2022
I asked three people intimately involved in hop breeding this question, “How do you suspect you will describe the varieties released 15 years from now?” Their answer are below.
As Nicholi Pitra, lead scientist variety development and bioinformatics at Hopsteiner, reminded me when we were discussing this same basic question from a different perspective, 15 years is close to the amount of time it takes to develop a new variety. In other words, the crosses being made now won’t be available until the 2030s. So, at the rate climate change is coming after hops, breeders already need to be working on replacements for popular but vulnerable cultivars. These include – take a deep breath – Cascade and Centennial.
From Kayla Altendorf, USDA research geneticist at Prosser, in the Yakima Valley.
– I hope they are developed using marker assisted selection or genomic selection and will have known, well-described disease resistance packages.
– Their development time from cross to release is less – current average for USDA varieties is around 13 years. I hope we’re at 8 years or fewer.
– Unique aromas, but also still a strong appreciation for the classics.
– We will have knowledge of their water use efficiency relative to other varieties, and will be actively evaluating and making selections using this information on an annual basis.
– Since HGA’s report (page 14) of drying being the most energy intensive part of hop production, I suspect we will be working towards having a better understanding of how certain cone morphologies and how irrigation or management practices can enable more efficient drying.
– We will have knowledge of optimal irrigation practices for new varieties.
From Shawn Townsend, Oregon State University, breeder for Indie Hops.
– More “boutique” hops that may specialize in one to a few flavors and brewers simply “paint” with these specialized hops to achieve a desired flavor and aroma. Gene editing and other genetic technologies may have a big impact on creating these designer hops.
– We’ll still have the Stratas, Citras, Mosaics and Cascades to provide a backbone for the boutique hops. Time will tell, but I suspect Luminosa may be one of these boutique cultivars that really needs something else there to provide the backbone/foundation for all of the fruit notes that it provides.
– Agronomic characteristics that can mitigate the effects of climate change will become more important than they are today. We talk about this cultivar being fruity or that cultivar being citrusy, but how often do you hear people say that this cultivar is very water-use efficient, or that cultivar has excellent heat tolerance?
– We’ll always be playing whack-a-mole with the various pests and pathogens, including new ones. Pest- and pathogen-resistant cultivars are still the preferred way to deal with these biotic stresses.
From Josh Havill at the University of Minnesota who is focused on researching hop genetics and developing genomic tools to accelerate hop variety development.
– Breeders will be targeting a variety of traits, all which likely result from a changing climate.
– All of these changes are likely to influence traits that breeders are bound to be selecting for. Hotter and drier summers might mean that diseases like downy mildew have less of an impact because conditions are less conducive for disease establishment or spread but that means the weather might be more favorable to diseases such as powdery mildew or pests such as spider mites. That may also mean that growing season may be lengthened.
– Climate change is going to affect different regions . . . differently. We may see breeding for all of those traits simultaneously. We’re going to need to boost the yield of aroma varieties, we’ll likely continue to explore and develop new aromas (or combinations), we’ll continue to and likely change the diseases or pests we target breeding for resistance (possibly because a new disease/pest emerges or is introduced, such as spotted lantern fly in the Eastern US), and we’ll probably have to identify varieties that thrive under hyper-variable weather conditions.