One thing that’s becoming increasingly significant in business life, but is seen as a risk in hop cultivation, is diversity, equity, and inclusion (or DEI for short). Diversity means variety among the members of a certain group, such as the employees in a company, for example. It refers to the characteristics that establish their identity, such as gender or ethnicity, and can be used as a resource when inclusion is practiced in a corporate culture and is encouraged by measures promoting equality. Companies expect DEI to make them more competitive, productive, and attractive.
Not so in the hop garden: There, male plants are not only excluded, but are actually hunted down and banned far beyond the confines of the farmed area. This is prescribed by the Bavarian “Regulation to Combat Wild Hops”, effective since 1956. Hop producers prefer female plants. This is because after flowering only they develop the yield-bringing cones whose lupulin glands provide the valuable bitter and aroma compounds. Male hop plants, on the other hand, only flower. The male flowers carry pollen that, while similar in composition to lupulin, has an estimated alpha acid content of only 0.1 percent, which is irrelevant for commercial cultivation.
In addition to that, the female plants produce cones fully autonomously. Their little green cones develop with or without pollination. But that is something hop producers would prefer to avoid at all costs. That is because pollinated cones bear tiny seeds on the underside of their bracteoles, are pale in color and less compact, disintegrate more easily, and are thus more prone to oxidation. Finally, pollinated cones have lower alpha content and produce lower yields. In terms of productivity, inclusion would therefore be detrimental.
Instead, the male hop plant is treated like a pest, or a criminal element that deserves only to be eliminated or locked away in solitary confinement! The latter actually happens in a field near the town of Freising, at a safe distance from Hallertau and surrounded by forest that acts as a natural pollen filter. There, the male hop plants undergo rehabilitation for breeding purposes. In the cross-breeding programs at the Hüll hop research center, male plants are chosen for resistance, resilience, and strong growth, while the female plants contribute the varietal traits. Pollination takes place in controlled conditions, of course: Personnel at the research center pollinate the flowers under a protective cover. In defense of male hops, it must be said that here they do make an important contribution to competitiveness.
Hermaphrodite plants, i.e. those bearing both male and female flowers, can also be found in hop botany. In evolutionary terms, they occur more frequently among the American Neomexicanus wild hops that have established themselves in the dry climate of the American South-West. Breeding programs using Neomexicanus have produced particularly resistant and aromatic varieties. Here, too: Leading through diversity!
Despite systematic efforts to exclude them, male and hermaphrodite plants do occur in hop gardens. Therefore, when the plants begin to flower, the hop growers have to look very closely to identify them by their flowers and then eradicate them from the hop garden. And finally, growers have to meet quality standards: According to EU Regulation 1850/2006, the proportion of seeds by weight must not exceed two percent. According to industry figures, German hop production is constantly below this limit. Things are different in England, by the way. There, producers literally cultivate diversity and inclusion. According to insiders, one plant in seven in an English hop garden is male. The British tradition is based on the belief that pollination creates a stimulus in the hop plant, shortening its ripening time and enhancing its resistance ... and the seeds increase the weight and, consequently, the profits, as competitors on the Continent complain.
It just goes to show how diverse hop growing can be.
