One thought on “#60: German Hops & Idling The Farm

  1. Can you discuss selinene and farnesene a little more? They seem to be good markers for UK and saazer genetics respectively, but selinene gets ignored on oil data sheets, even when there is a significant proportion of it present. Given that selinene is high in celery seeds, and I find some UK hops and their derivatives have some gritty vegetal/celery charcter, is that selinene or the power of suggestion?

    Also, Magnum is a Galena x German male cross. Interesting that Magnum doesn’t share Galena’s sharpness, high beta, or high cohumulone. Are there any consistent patterns to the ‘logistics’ of gene transmission from mother vs. father, i.e. soft resin is influenced from this parent, hard resins from this parent? From what the breeding companies describe, most crosses are made targeting the oil of the female line and the storage, growth, beta acid and/or co-H of the male line. If crosses do present characteristics of their parents, are they exceptions from the bulk of their sibling selections, because there are plenty of crosses that have similar oil and bittering qualities of their parents, like Sterling/saaz, crystal, mt. hood, ultra, liberty/mittelfruh, select/spalt spalter, tradition/mittelfruh, mosaic/simcoe, jaryllo/nugget, hbc692/sabro, amarillo/cascade (somatic mutation?), super galena, tilicum, chelan/galena, ctz/nugget, ekuanot/comet?

    Can you discuss the relationship between polyphenol content, field practices/epigenetics, and genotype? I *think* I read somewhere that continental growers rely less on irrigation that the US growers due to higher average rainfall, and somewhere else that inconsistent watering express increased polyphenol production as a stress response, so that made me wonder whether some of the ‘continental’ character was a result of field practices and not genotype. Especially considering that the german Cascade crosses (blanc, mandarina, melon) and US hops grown in germany all express the german astringency first, US oil character second.

    Cheers!

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