Maximum Yield USA December 2017 | Page 109

Initially, the pilot project had to establish whether or not it would even get off the ground. “We needed to determine if this dog would hunt,” is the way Lewis describes it. “We sat there day by day, looking at the flowers, wondering if they would flower, cajoling them to do so. Like a lot of research, it’s all a crap shoot.” The initial harvest in mid-August bagged up 3.7 pounds of aromatic hops and the expectation is that the Phase II yield will be much higher. “The neat thing about these plants is that they’re a multi-year plant, not a one-shot like an annual where you get one crop and it’s done. Hops are like a fruit tree where every year you get a bigger harvest. We’re working under the assumption that production increases dramatically after the first year and that drives the importance of keeping the program going now that we have an established library of plants. We’ll continue to seek industry support to continue it, but this train is rolling and I have no intention of stopping now.” Lewis’s predecessor at CEAC, Colin Clark at HydroHops, says, “My first attempt to grow hydroponic hops was in the University of Arizona CEAC club greenhouse, where we wanted to see if we could get a handful of plants to survive. They did and I took that experience with me to Colorado and scaled it up to over 2,000 plants in a 5,000-square-foot greenhouse.” As co-owner and head grower, Clark set out to provide beer brewers with a quality of hop higher than that of traditional growing methods, a variety of strains providing wet hops offered in an extended growing season. “Hydro Hop Farms LLC is currently harvesting its fourth season, proving that hops can be grown successfully in a hydroponic greenhouse using artificial off-season lighting to produce hops of superior quality and oil content. Going into current season five, our main challenge is to make this a more profitable venture.” Labor and harvesting equipment are two of the major cost factors to be considered and resolved. “It currently takes someone about an hour to harvest just over a pound of dry hops and while hard harvesting is okay for small niche growers, scaling things up for greater production requires mechanical harvesting as well as some tweaking over the way we space and grow our plants,” Clark says. “ PEOPLE don’t realize how much work is involved here. Hops are a physically demanding plant and I’ve never worked this hard in my life.” Like many start-up operations, many hands make work lighter and Clark says hydroponic hop greenhouse growers need to help each other. “We need to share research, share knowledge, and share our passion. Our company motto is, ‘We’re not here to make a dollar, we’re here to make a change.’ The future holds good things for controlled environment growing; we just need more educated workers, enthusiastic entrepreneurs to keep the ball rolling and prove to the consumer and the inves- tors that controlled environment agriculture can and should be a respected part of the commercial agricultural industry.” Adds CSU’s Bauerele, “Despite the setbacks we’ve encountered in our research experiments, I’m not giving up on this because it’s doable and the growing commercial interest from a number of large North American growers supports that theory.” grow cycle 105