Czech hop growers produced 6752,79 t of hops in 2008

Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture announced the final crop results. Due to favorable growing conditions in 2008 the total harvest reached 6752,79 of hops.

In the Saaz hop growing region the total hop production was 4576,24 t, in the Auscha hop growing region the total production was 960,41 t and in the Tirschitz hop growing region the hop production was 1215,84 t.

Compare to the bad crop results in 2006 and 2007 we see the 2008 crop as a very good one. It is even the second best year in the last decade behind the 2005 crop with 7831 t.

However with regards to the total production of Saaz variety 2008 crop ranks in the fifth place in the last decade due to the decrease in hop acreage.

Saaz variety

The best world fine aroma variety - Saaz accounts for the largest share of the Czech hop production with 5563 t. There was 3848,5 t harvested in the Saaz hop growing region, 846,5 t harvested in the Auscha hop growing region and 868 t of Saaz variety harvested in the Tirschitz hop growing region.

The production of  Saaz variety was 1000 t over the crop 2007 and 846 t over the crop 2006.

The acreage of the Saaz variety has decreased only since 2000 already by 1175 hectares, i.e. 20 %  in the Czech Republic. The decrease of Saaz acreage has continued due to insufficient renewal of this variety and still very high age of plants of this variety in the Czech Republic. Despite the very good result of this year the danger is not yet over for the Czech Republic due to low prices in the last 15 years. According to Mr. Zdenek Rosa from the Hop Growers Union of the Czech Republic “This year result together with the improvement in prices has brought a hope to the hop growers and also a possibility to start with very need investments. It is now necessary for the hop growers in the Czech Republic to maintain the price development as well as the continual support for hop growing in the policy of agriculture subsidies.

Other Czech varieties

The aroma variety Sladek performed well as in the last year and the total production reached 548,5 t. The production of aroma variety Premiant was 478,9 t and the production of the bitter variety Angus 114,1 t. The yields of these varieties were similar as in the last year.

Content of hop bitter acids

As with yields also the content of hop bitter acid was positively influenced by good climatic conditions of 2008 and the values especially of the Saaz variety were better than in the previous years (e.g. 2006 - 2,1 % nebo 2007 – 2,9 %).

The following official harvest results of alpha bitter acids were presented by the Association of hop merchants and hop processors in the Czech Republic for 2008.