The international hop growing industry on around 61,500 hectares, with focus on Europe and the US, is currently facing enormous challenges as a special culture. Especially, climate change and higher requirements for the protection of environmental resources are forcing discussion on the reorientation of hop growing for the future. Principal points of the Global Hop Summit on November 18, 2019 in Brussels are (i) an introduction of new methods for efficient irrigation and needs-based fertilization, (ii) a necessary reorientation of pest and disease control as well as (iii) a significant intensification of breeding and research to achieve these objectives. Slovenian Institute of Hop Research and Brewing presents also the LIFE BioTHOP project, which is focused in replacing the polypropilene twine on the hop fields with the biotwine made of polylactic acid (PLA) which is produced from renewable resources, and that can be degraded by composting into water, CO2 and biomass.
#LIFEproject #BioTHOP #ResourceEfficiency #Brussels
24. 11. 2019