Society of Hop Research (Gesellschaft für Hopfenforschung e.V.) at hop research center Hüll

Institution

Section overview

Description
Activities
Financed funding programmes
Involved in research projects
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Description

1. Breeding of Hew Hop Varieties applying traditional breeding by crossing supported by the latest biotechnological methods and by genome analysis wieth the following objectives:

    Excellent brewing quality
    Good resistance to pest and diseases
    Good agronomical characteristics
    Registration and introduction of appropriate new varieties after extensive investigations and trial brew

2. Environmentally-friendly hop production

    Optimized fertilization to avoid ground-water pollution and to minimize the nitrate content in hops
    Avoidance of soil erosion by sowing green manuring plants
    Investigation of the optimum harvesting time for each individual variety to optimize yields and qualities
    Development of optimum drying and conditioning procedures to ensure brewing quality

3. Development of Strategies to Control Pests and Diseases

    Performance of outdoor tests to optimize the use of pesticides and insecticides in order to achieve minimum spraying residues and maximum environmental protection
    Examination of suitable pesticides
    Optimization of spraying techniques
    Development of alternative pest control methods

4. Analysis of the Valuable Hop Constituents and Development of New Analytical Methods
    Bitter substances: conductometric titration, HPLC, NIR (in proving)
    Essential oils: head space gas chromatography, water steam distillation, SPME (=solid phase micro-extraction)
    Polyphenols: HPLC, spectrophotometry (total polyphenols, xanthohumol, quercitin and caempferol)
Organization and evaluation of ring analyses for quality assurance in determining alpha acids for hop supply contracts

5. Realization of the research results by providing the hop growers with competent, detailed advice.

The Hop Research Institute in Hüll
    Works independently of company interests
    Handles all questions regarding hops in one organization
    Has competence which is recognized worldwide