Latest / No Dirt No Flowers Podcast / Latitude 46 Private Breeding Program / Ft. Megan Twomey

Transcript

Latitude 46 Private Breeding Program / Ft. Megan Twomey · No Dirt No Flowers Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back. Thanks for your
• 0:04
  patience between the longer than anticipated
• 0:06
  gap between episodes, but we're back today with
• 0:09
  a brand new episode. Mike and Drew are joined
• 0:13
  by Megan Toomey from Latitude 46, a Pacific Northwest
• 0:16
  hop breeding company. They'll be talking about
• 0:18
  Megan's background, the history of the breeding
• 0:20
  company, and much, much more. It's good to be
• 0:22
  back and enjoy the show. Okay, we're good. Liz
• 0:30
  is here. Just ready to go. Megan Toomey is here.
• 0:38
  Drew's here. You weren't here for the last one.
• 0:41
  Back in the saddle, baby. Back in the saddle.
• 0:43
  It's been a while. Oh, yeah. Kind of got a little
• 0:45
  sidetracked there on our podcasting, but we're
• 0:49
  good. There's a lot going on. It's easier to
• 0:51
  do before we're grown -ups. Yeah, it's true.
• 0:56
  Maybe it'll get easier after the... Fourth of
• 0:58
  July, the... That's what I'm looking for. Calm
• 1:02
  before the storm. Kind of. It was like calm before
• 1:05
  the storm in August. Do you have notes that you
• 1:07
  wrote over there? Just talking points. This is
• 1:10
  not scripted. I know it's not scripted. I love
• 1:14
  it. Okay. Where do you want to start? Well, probably
• 1:19
  with... Introducing Megan? Yeah. Welcome to the
• 1:23
  show, Megan. Thanks, guys. Good to be here. Yeah,
• 1:26
  give us some of your background. Well, I came
• 1:29
  to the industry in 2009. I started as a manager
• 1:32
  of an R &D lab for one of the major merchants
• 1:35
  in town here. It started off as just a summer
• 1:37
  job after I got my master's. It was, again, 2009.
• 1:41
  The job market wasn't great, so I was like, oh,
• 1:43
  I'll take this summer job in hops. Turned out
• 1:45
  I really liked the crop. It wound up opening
• 1:47
  a lot of doors for me, and so now, 16, 17 years
• 1:49
  later, here I am. After the R &D manager position,
• 1:53
  I took a job at Oregon State University in the
• 1:56
  plant pathology lab where I basically managed
• 1:58
  the research there for the principal investigator.
• 2:01
  And after five years down there, I wound up coming
• 2:04
  back to Yakima and taking the job here at Roy
• 2:06
  Farms for ADHA and what eventually became Latitude
• 2:10
  46. Nice. That was very quick and concise. Yeah,
• 2:14
  let's zoom back though. So we went... Zoom back?
• 2:17
  Zoom. Let's... You know, I'm a little cold. I
• 2:21
  haven't been on the show for a while, and so
• 2:24
  we've got to get this thing warmed back up. So
• 2:28
  where did you go to college? What was your bachelor's?
• 2:31
  What was your master's? I started at the University
• 2:34
  of Washington as a biology undergrad, and then
• 2:38
  I wound up finishing that up at Western Washington,
• 2:40
  and then I stayed on. A Viking. I was, yes. And
• 2:44
  then I stayed on to get my master's there in
• 2:46
  molecular biology, studying plant pollination
• 2:49
  proteins. Cool. Wow, that's above my pay grade.
• 2:53
  And then you just started working in the summer
• 2:56
  program and were like, hey, this is rad, I'm
• 2:58
  going to stick it up. Yeah, well, I took a summer
• 3:01
  job at Western Weeding for a pathology program
• 3:04
  at WSU in Mount Vernon. and discovered that I
• 3:07
  actually really liked agronomy and working with
• 3:10
  plants. Originally, I was going to go into human
• 3:12
  pathology and epidemiology, but decided I didn't
• 3:16
  really... Small words, Megan, ones that we can
• 3:18
  understand. Studying human diseases, but then
• 3:21
  it turns out I'm not a fan of body fluids, and
• 3:24
  plants don't talk back, and it's a sad one. You
• 3:31
  kill them, but you're also less impactful in
• 3:34
  that sense. And plant pathology, I didn't realize
• 3:38
  it, but it just became very fascinating to me.
• 3:40
  So getting to explore that at WSU was just a
• 3:44
  lot of fun. And again, it was just a $10 job
• 3:46
  weeding plots for a research program in the summer.
• 3:49
  And so when the position opened up here in Yakima
• 3:53
  for the lab manager position. I was going to
• 3:57
  get to be working on tissue culture, doing some
• 4:00
  genetic discoveries and that sort of thing. And
• 4:02
  it's just like, oh, this could be a really fun
• 4:04
  experience. And I just wound up enjoying it a
• 4:07
  lot more than I thought. And again, that $10
• 4:10
  weeding job opened up a lot of connections for
• 4:12
  me that wound up kind of paving the way for my
• 4:14
  career in the future. So it's kind of funny how
• 4:16
  small decisions can have big lifelong impacts
• 4:19
  that way. Yeah, that's so cool. I guess I was
• 4:22
  unaware that... that hops and plant pathology
• 4:27
  was an offshoot of your original life plans yeah
• 4:31
  it's just funny how life works out you know person
• 4:34
  that hired me and uh western i wound up working
• 4:37
  with at oregon state university and it's i don't
• 4:39
  know the the connectivity of the industry is
• 4:42
  just really um kind of i don't know fortuitous
• 4:45
  is the right word or like uh i don't know it
• 4:47
  was just kind of meant to be kind of a thing
• 4:48
  nice we're happy it worked out that way oh me
• 4:51
  too for sure oh yeah So when you started at Latitude
• 4:55
  46, what was your first role and how has that
• 5:00
  changed since then? Well, my first role at Latitude
• 5:04
  46 was the agronomist and brand manager. And
• 5:06
  that was when we were still the American Dwarf
• 5:09
  Hop Association. So, yeah, I was really just
• 5:11
  doing kind of like the advanced agronomic assessments
• 5:14
  on the breeding population that we already had
• 5:17
  in -house. And, you know, brand manager, which
• 5:20
  turns out... really wasn't all that good at because
• 5:23
  i'm not a big social media i'm not very cool
• 5:25
  so like social media that's not true at all and
• 5:31
  uh you know just yeah andy's far better suited
• 5:34
  to it than than i would have ever been but um
• 5:37
  the gift of gab the gift of gab yeah like i'd
• 5:40
  rather spend my time you know talking to plants
• 5:42
  and you know hanging out in the field than designing
• 5:45
  merchandise and swag and making social media
• 5:49
  posts and stuff like that Yeah, so brand manager,
• 5:53
  advanced agronomic discovery. And then where'd
• 5:59
  it go from there? Yeah, so when I came here,
• 6:01
  we had pretty much all the germplasm on a one
• 6:03
  and a half acre plot because the program had
• 6:05
  been kind of in like a stasis for probably about
• 6:07
  like eight years, wouldn't you say? And so I
• 6:11
  basically took it all down to the studs. We were
• 6:13
  still in a seven by seven arrangement, which
• 6:15
  is like the historical way that breeders would
• 6:18
  maintain their plants on like a seven by seven
• 6:20
  cross cultivated. The issues with that is it's
• 6:23
  not really true to a commercial setting. So when
• 6:25
  I first got here, we just dug it up. We redid
• 6:28
  the trellis and basically expanded it from this
• 6:30
  one and a half acre into what's now, I think
• 6:32
  we're pushing 30 acres at this point. And so
• 6:34
  we built a facility, our picking facility, our
• 6:37
  research picker, because there wasn't anything
• 6:39
  like that when I first got here, too. So the
• 6:41
  first five years were really kind of building
• 6:42
  the infrastructure for what the program has become
• 6:44
  today. And it's really, I don't know, we're really
• 6:47
  proud of where we've come in such a short amount
• 6:50
  of time. And this was all done with a very minimal
• 6:51
  staff, too. Like for those first five years,
• 6:53
  it was really just myself, Jamie, our hot breeder,
• 6:56
  and our crew boss, Juliana. And so we did a lot
• 7:00
  of this. A lot of the plants that are out there,
• 7:01
  we hand -cut ourselves, we planted ourselves.
• 7:04
  And so it's really now we're past that point
• 7:06
  because the program has legs of its own, really.
• 7:09
  But it's just something that we're really proud
• 7:11
  to see, and we're proud of it. Are you still
• 7:15
  weeding them yourself? Absolutely not. Okay.
• 7:18
  I'm getting way too old for that. I will pull
• 7:20
  a piece of kosher if I'm out there, but just
• 7:22
  bending over, weeding. Everyone needs to pull
• 7:26
  a piece of kosher if you're out in the hot field.
• 7:27
  Drew, you need to pull a piece of kosher. I do.
• 7:31
  Most people, it's really funny. Even if we're
• 7:32
  just standing on the side of a field, most people
• 7:34
  just reach down and pull it up. Even Jeff, when
• 7:37
  we were out there the other day by the trailer,
• 7:38
  he's pulling kosher. I'm like, my field's right
• 7:40
  there. Feel free. Everyone needs to participate.
• 7:44
  Liz should probably pull some kosher at some
• 7:46
  point. Oh, yeah. Vile little plant that it is.
• 7:49
  Oh, man. All right. So first five years digging
• 7:53
  back into the idled program and building the
• 7:58
  foundation for things to come. Exactly. Yeah.
• 8:01
  So diving into the history a little bit before
• 8:04
  we get into what happened kind of post foundation
• 8:08
  build. Yeah. Maybe talk a little bit about. Latitude
• 8:11
  46, which was previously the American Dwarf Hop
• 8:14
  Association, and then intermittently known as
• 8:17
  something that I can never remember the name
• 8:19
  of. Yeah, that one's a mouthful. But the American
• 8:23
  Dwarf Hop Association, or ADHA, started in 2003,
• 8:26
  a joint venture between Roy Farms and Greenacre
• 8:30
  Farms. The first variety that was released out
• 8:33
  of that program was Summit. And some it's still
• 8:36
  grown today on, you know, a few hundred acres.
• 8:37
  And so it is still an impactful variety in the
• 8:40
  industry. But the breeding focus was entirely
• 8:43
  low trellis high alpha hops back then. And the
• 8:45
  idea of that was to kind of shift towards automation
• 8:47
  with kind of a look to the future on, you know,
• 8:50
  kind of alleviating some of the labor constraints.
• 8:53
  Of course, at the time, labor was still pretty
• 8:56
  readily available and affordable. So it wasn't.
• 8:58
  The onus to make that shift at the time wasn't
• 9:01
  really there. So low trellis was developed and
• 9:04
  deployed, but it didn't economically make sense
• 9:08
  at that point just because the front end does
• 9:10
  require quite a lot of investment to get into.
• 9:14
  But there still is a great deal of potential
• 9:16
  there. So the dwarf breeding program was developed
• 9:18
  with this in mind. And, you know, again, Summit
• 9:21
  being the first variety that came out was strictly,
• 9:23
  you know, low trellis, high alpha focused. Now
• 9:26
  that shift did go into aroma varieties, still
• 9:28
  focusing on low trellis a few years later. There
• 9:31
  were some kind of infrastructure problems with
• 9:35
  low trellis that we've kind of been working back
• 9:37
  and forth with over these last few years, ways
• 9:39
  to get around, such as, you know, just trellis
• 9:42
  instability and the potential for off types.
• 9:45
  So the shift was kind of made back to standard
• 9:48
  height commercial. And that's the point when
• 9:51
  Azaka, Pico, and Urella were released, probably
• 9:53
  around like, they were officially released in
• 9:56
  2016, but they kind of came on the scene in 2012.
• 9:59
  And this is also the point when the breeders
• 10:02
  that were breeding for the low trellis high alpha
• 10:04
  kind of parted ways because it became a conflict
• 10:07
  of interest because they do work for another
• 10:08
  breeding program in the industry. Well, because
• 10:10
  we used to have, Jason was doing some of the
• 10:13
  work for us, the selections and the... Gene from
• 10:19
  Bosco as well. Yeah, and Gene was doing some
• 10:20
  of that as well. And then, yeah, when we were
• 10:22
  fully low trellis, the view was that it was not
• 10:26
  a conflict of interest because Hot Breeding Company
• 10:29
  slash YCR was not involved in low trellis genetics.
• 10:35
  And so we farmed out some of the work to them.
• 10:39
  And then once the... craft beer movement took
• 10:43
  off and we kind of shifted our program into at
• 10:47
  the time both low trellis and high trellis selections
• 10:51
  it was viewed that that was a conflict of interest
• 10:53
  and so then we had to go and build out our own
• 10:55
  program if we wanted to focus on high trellis
• 10:58
  varieties and i think that's an interesting point
• 11:01
  is that what started as low trellis high alpha
• 11:06
  has evolved into different things that we can
• 11:11
  talk about and there's still that component there
• 11:13
  we're trying to decide what to do with moving
• 11:15
  forward but two things that made that system
• 11:20
  well why we we shifted away from low trellis
• 11:24
  high alpha at the time was mostly due to craft
• 11:26
  beer and we didn't have the diversity within
• 11:30
  our our germplasm for let's call it a full portfolio
• 11:34
  of low trellis varieties we had alpha but we
• 11:37
  didn't have necessarily aroma and some stuff
• 11:40
  works on low trellis a lot doesn't and then megan
• 11:45
  also spoke about some of the the learnings and
• 11:48
  kind of how we would need to re -engineer the
• 11:52
  the systems uh if we were going to use that moving
• 11:56
  forward yeah but at one point we had was it 300
• 11:59
  and some odd acres of low trellis and r d and
• 12:03
  built had a company build these Mobile harvesters,
• 12:08
  that's a story in and of itself. When we started
• 12:12
  the program, we unearthed this old low trellis
• 12:16
  harvester that they had built. I can't remember.
• 12:18
  Do you remember what year that thing was originally
• 12:20
  built? I mean, it was old. It was before my time.
• 12:22
  Yeah, so we got that through a grant and then
• 12:25
  rebuilt that, ran it for a season, took learnings,
• 12:29
  and then traveled over to the UK. and looked
• 12:33
  at their systems because they were the most advanced
• 12:38
  in terms of genetics and equipment at the time.
• 12:42
  And they had a field harvester that they had
• 12:47
  designed. And I can't remember specifically why,
• 12:51
  but this Czech company had the license to build
• 12:55
  them or bought the plans from the UK. And so...
• 13:01
  We had a Czech company build us a machine and
• 13:05
  ship it over here that we used for one or two
• 13:08
  seasons and then figured out that we needed something
• 13:10
  more robust and then had an American company
• 13:14
  that specialized in over -the -row wine grape
• 13:18
  harvesters, engineers, and mobile harvesters
• 13:21
  for us. And we went through years and years of
• 13:23
  modifications on those until we got them to a
• 13:25
  point where we felt they were pretty good. they're
• 13:28
  about you know i think i can't remember it's
• 13:30
  hard to say because most of those were you know
• 13:34
  had a lot of revisions done to them and and costs
• 13:38
  associated with those revisions but you know
• 13:41
  i mean probably to produce them now they'd be
• 13:43
  like half a million bucks a piece or something
• 13:45
  like that you know and those were like tow behinds
• 13:47
  and so i mean we still have like three four of
• 13:49
  them out there yeah i don't know If anyone's
• 13:52
  interested in low trellis harvesters, we have
• 13:54
  a few. If anyone wants to play around with them.
• 13:56
  I think the Czechs are the only people still
• 13:58
  actually growing on low trellis. Really? In the
• 14:00
  world, yeah. Really? There's not even like a
• 14:03
  small, because those harvesters existed in China,
• 14:07
  too. Oh, I mean, there could be other areas.
• 14:10
  England might have some, even because they did
• 14:12
  low trellis for a while, too, correct? Yeah,
• 14:13
  yeah. So, yeah, we never consistently hit. the
• 14:19
  economic targets that we were after the goal
• 14:22
  was like 50 or 60 percent cost 50 or 60 percent
• 14:27
  of the production costs on high trellis with
• 14:29
  80 yield because we were assuming a drop and
• 14:34
  uh it'd be interesting to rerun those numbers
• 14:36
  now with the cost of labor and the complexity
• 14:39
  of labor yeah because because it did i mean the
• 14:42
  nice thing about that is that that the system
• 14:45
  did address the the three labor peaks in hop
• 14:49
  production twining training harvesting and you
• 14:54
  know sometimes we were able to meet in a couple
• 15:00
  cases exceed but i use that cautiously meet high
• 15:06
  trellis yields on low trellis but there's there's
• 15:10
  some real there's a real art in trying to get
• 15:13
  those things to basically you know, flower and
• 15:18
  produce the way that they would on high trellis
• 15:20
  on low trellis. Um, well in green acres is able
• 15:23
  to grow cascade on low trellis pretty successfully
• 15:26
  for, for several years as well. Yeah. I mean,
• 15:28
  cascade is one of the ones that, that we felt
• 15:31
  early on would work on low trellis. And we had
• 15:35
  it on low trellis for a little bit. Azaka did
• 15:37
  get on low trellis. Azaka is, you know, I mean,
• 15:39
  we got 3000 pounds per acre on low trellis on
• 15:42
  Azaka, not consistently. But that was the peak.
• 15:45
  So that's basically kind of what we see on high
• 15:47
  trellis. Well, and that's the thing with these
• 15:50
  dwarfing varieties as well. It's Pico, Urello,
• 15:52
  and Azaca were all bred for low trellis, but
• 15:55
  yet are still able to be farmed on standard.
• 15:58
  Summit as well has grown on standard trellis
• 16:00
  now. And even with their semidorphine characteristics,
• 16:05
  they might not hit the wire, but the dwarven
• 16:08
  characteristics with short inner nodes, high
• 16:10
  cone -to -leaf ratio, and cone production from
• 16:13
  top to bottom means that you could still out
• 16:15
  -yield hops that go over the wire pretty easily.
• 16:18
  They're just powerhouses, nothing but cones usually
• 16:21
  by harvest. So we talked about the origins of...
• 16:26
  what is now Latitude 46, which was previously
• 16:29
  the American Dwarf Hop Association. And as you
• 16:32
  said, it was a program that started around low
• 16:37
  trellis, high alpha. And I remember when we started
• 16:41
  to go down that road, and I remember one of the
• 16:45
  focuses was to compete with China on a cost per
• 16:51
  kilogram basis. We were looking at... China's
• 16:55
  labor costs and China's ability to produce alpha.
• 16:59
  And that's what we're using as our benchmark.
• 17:02
  We're saying, okay, if anyone's going to come
• 17:04
  into this industry and compete with us at the
• 17:07
  time, compete with us in the global alpha market,
• 17:10
  it was going to be China, we felt. And so then
• 17:14
  we're using their economics and then looking
• 17:17
  at our low trellis systems that we're deploying
• 17:19
  as a way to compete with that. And then we evolved
• 17:23
  that program over time to what it is now, which
• 17:26
  still has its origins in low trellis and has
• 17:30
  potentially some low trellis opportunity that
• 17:34
  we haven't exploited because we've been focused
• 17:36
  on other things. But what we've primarily been
• 17:39
  focused on for, I don't know, what, the last
• 17:41
  10 years is high trellis aroma varieties, as
• 17:47
  well as alpha, but primarily aroma, that... Yeah,
• 17:51
  the market. It's kind of moved to a more traditional
• 17:54
  breeding program. It's moved to a more traditional
• 17:56
  breeding program for sure. And very dual purpose
• 17:59
  focus too. So when you say like aroma focus,
• 18:01
  but also high alpha, we tend to, most of our
• 18:04
  advancements usually tend to run in the 13 to
• 18:08
  16 % alpha range anyway. Just for the record,
• 18:11
  and this is not against anyone in this room,
• 18:13
  I hate the term dual purpose. No, you don't have
• 18:15
  to correct yourself. I'm just saying. I'm trying
• 18:17
  to think of another word we could use for it.
• 18:20
  Multiple utilization. Yes. Versatile. Versatile.
• 18:23
  Maybe it's just the new standard. Probably is.
• 18:27
  Although there's a lot in the pipeline and other
• 18:29
  programs, and even ours, where we're kind of
• 18:31
  in the gray zone, kind of like the 8 % to 12
• 18:34
  % alpha, where it's too high to be a noble, but
• 18:37
  not high enough to be considered a versatile
• 18:40
  hub. Versatile. There you go. Maybe that's a
• 18:45
  better one. Versatile. God. that whole dual purpose
• 18:49
  thing. I think that was like a, it was an attempt
• 18:51
  to, to try and. Well, that's an insurance policy
• 18:54
  too, because if for, you know, whatever reason
• 18:56
  or something, you know, there's a flaw or something
• 18:58
  is wrong with the, the harvest or for whatever
• 19:00
  reason, it doesn't get accepted. You can always
• 19:02
  send it to juice and not have it be a total loss.
• 19:04
  Well, no, that is one of the biggest advantages.
• 19:07
  I mean, yeah, there's, that's the versatility.
• 19:08
  Yeah. Yeah. That's the versatility is that there's,
• 19:11
  there's obviously brewing value with some of
• 19:15
  those. But generally speaking for us, what's
• 19:19
  nice is that, yeah, if we get into an oversupply
• 19:22
  situation, we can turn it into alpha economically.
• 19:25
  You got to be above, what, 10%, 11 % alpha, really
• 19:30
  10 % alpha to really make the economics work
• 19:33
  on juicing it into alpha. Yeah, I mean, depending
• 19:38
  on the market. Today? Yeah, today that might
• 19:42
  not fly, but anyway. Yeah, generally speaking.
• 19:46
  So as we shifted into high trellis, can you talk
• 19:51
  a little bit about the selection criteria that
• 19:56
  we're using in low trellis that is beneficial
• 19:59
  in high trellis production? You kind of talked
• 20:01
  a little bit about it where Azaka and Summit
• 20:05
  and Pico and Urillo and probably even Adina and
• 20:09
  some other stuff that you could mention has this
• 20:13
  high trellis. advantage i guess if you want to
• 20:16
  call it that because of what we're previously
• 20:19
  doing with low trellis selection criteria you
• 20:24
  don't need to give it all away because we don't
• 20:25
  want to give away all of it which it's probably
• 20:26
  industry known anyway but you know like what
• 20:29
  what are some examples of why those selections
• 20:33
  are working so well on high trellis well and
• 20:36
  adina is an excellent example on that too that's
• 20:38
  our our most recent release we didn't really
• 20:40
  get into the rebranding part of our history but
• 20:43
  oh we will we'll see the background and uh you
• 20:46
  know adina is an absolute beast out of out of
• 20:48
  all of our semi -dorfing uh varieties and all
• 20:51
  of our commercially released varieties she's
• 20:53
  definitely the highest yielding one and uh you
• 20:56
  know the way that we tend to select is uh you
• 20:58
  know we look for a high cone to leaf ratio so
• 21:00
  we tend So they tend to not produce as much biomass.
• 21:04
  So what you're actually harvesting is more of
• 21:05
  the actual product and not a whole lot of leaf
• 21:08
  material, a lot of waste. Specifically, we're
• 21:11
  doing that. That was one of the selection criteria
• 21:13
  because the less biomass that we had out in the
• 21:17
  field for the over -the -row harvesters, the
• 21:19
  easier it was and the more efficient that we
• 21:22
  were. harvesting those yeah and you know every
• 21:25
  truckload you've got more pounds of hops versus
• 21:27
  more pounds of leaves when you've got you've
• 21:29
  got a variety like chinook say oh man it's very
• 21:31
  biomass heavy i mean it's probably it only crops
• 21:34
  probably the top half of the plant and then you're
• 21:36
  being generous maybe a third and uh you know
• 21:40
  just the leaf masses is massive and so like you
• 21:44
  know in a in a truckload a hop truckload of hops
• 21:46
  probably only about a third of it is actual product
• 21:48
  and the rest of that's going under the garbage
• 21:50
  pile. But when you get, you know, a hop like
• 21:51
  a Dina, it's probably easily like, you know,
• 21:54
  75 % product. And, you know, the cropping. Also
• 21:58
  something that we bred for in low trellis as
• 22:02
  well goes from the top of the plant to probably
• 22:04
  about 80 % of the plants, maybe only about 20
• 22:07
  % of the bottom, and that might even be a bit
• 22:09
  generous. I've seen them go all the way down
• 22:11
  to the ground. That's not typically something
• 22:13
  that we want, however, because then you are losing
• 22:16
  product on the ground, and we don't want to cut
• 22:18
  the hops all the way at the base. We want to
• 22:21
  kind of give them those carbohydrate reserves
• 22:23
  to become stronger and produce more. I get that
• 22:26
  question every harvest. from the management team
• 22:28
  how low do you want me to cut these it's like
• 22:31
  just go normal they're like well we're leaving
• 22:33
  two feet of crop on the ground yeah that's it's
• 22:38
  kind of like a you know like a nutrition drink
• 22:41
  for the for the crown for the winter time leaving
• 22:43
  leaving that strap on the on the crown is very
• 22:45
  important to the overall health of the plant
• 22:47
  yep you leave five percent on the ground but
• 22:50
  then the following year you get a better crop
• 22:53
  exactly it's a good trade -off so what else so
• 22:57
  you high cone to leaf ratio which that is not
• 23:02
  only important in terms of um you know reduced
• 23:05
  biomass that we're hauling into the machine and
• 23:08
  back out to the field via compost or whatever
• 23:11
  you know format we're hauling it back out into
• 23:14
  the field in you know it's beneficial with the
• 23:18
  infield harvesters but it's also beneficial for
• 23:21
  the for the stationary harvesters because we
• 23:24
  can run them through the machine more efficiently
• 23:26
  we're not overloading the cleaning capacity of
• 23:28
  the machine so when we get into an adina or zaka
• 23:31
  the kills just you'd fill those things up real
• 23:35
  fast yeah but i mean talk specifically as long
• 23:38
  as we're mentioning adina i think we'll get back
• 23:40
  into this hopefully when we get into um kind
• 23:44
  of more what's exciting in the program but just
• 23:47
  throw out the initial stats of adina and yeah
• 23:51
  Well, Adina was the first release after we rebranded
• 23:55
  to the Association for the Development of Hoppagronomy.
• 23:58
  That's the phrase. That's the one that I think
• 24:02
  everybody's going to forget about in a couple
• 24:04
  of years. That would be really good. Hopefully
• 24:06
  myself included. And it was such a mouthful that
• 24:10
  we just went by ADHD. It was a clever attempt.
• 24:12
  It was an attempt. It was an attempt. I'm not
• 24:15
  going to go as far as clever. Sorry for who came
• 24:17
  up with that. Yeah, and Adina genetically is
• 24:20
  just one of the most fascinating hops I've ever
• 24:22
  worked with. She's got her family trees a little
• 24:26
  bit more of a wreath. You know, her mother and
• 24:29
  grandmother are both Summit. We've got the genetics
• 24:31
  posted on our website, you know, just in case
• 24:33
  this isn't some trade secret or anything like
• 24:35
  that. Wait, can you just back up the truck? Sure.
• 24:37
  You said her mother and, oh, grandmother on the
• 24:40
  male side. Yes. Yes. It's a paternal grandmother
• 24:44
  and then her mother are. So, you know, family
• 24:49
  gene pool is a little shallow in that. And that
• 24:51
  can bring some risks, but it also does kind of
• 24:54
  open opportunities for, you know, really crazy
• 24:57
  mutations in some ways. And Azaka has, you know,
• 25:00
  the vigor of a high alpha hop, but with, you
• 25:02
  know. very low alpha. It tends to be between
• 25:05
  3 % to 5%. You said Azaki, you mean Adina? I
• 25:08
  did mean Adina. It's got the vigor of a high
• 25:10
  alpha hoppet, but very low alpha. And typically,
• 25:12
  and this is anecdotal, this isn't always the
• 25:14
  case, but in observations, your high alpha and
• 25:18
  your vigor tend to be linked, tend to be genetically
• 25:20
  linked or historically have been. I've definitely
• 25:22
  seen some diversification from that in recent
• 25:25
  years. So Adina has this production power that
• 25:28
  you usually only see in something like a CTZ
• 25:30
  or your late season. Your late harvested high
• 25:34
  alphas. It does pick later in the season, which
• 25:36
  is kind of unusual for an aroma. Not bad because
• 25:41
  the current harvest window is pretty overloaded
• 25:45
  in the middle. Yeah. And the great thing about
• 25:48
  Adina is she does hang. So she kind of hits maturity
• 25:50
  at about the second week in September, but then
• 25:53
  just hangs there for about. two, two and a half
• 25:55
  weeks. So we just kind of let the aroma develop.
• 25:57
  The dry matter doesn't increase, the alpha doesn't
• 26:00
  increase, and we just kind of wait until it's
• 26:01
  at that just right, perfect aroma stage to pick,
• 26:04
  which historically has always happened right
• 26:06
  around the 21st of September, give or take a
• 26:08
  couple days. It's been almost the same for the
• 26:10
  last, this will be its seventh year in production
• 26:13
  here, which is just crazy to me because it was
• 26:15
  the very first job I had when I came on this
• 26:18
  farm was digging the roots for that field. There
• 26:22
  cannot be, I can only think of one other variety
• 26:24
  out there that. is that low of alpha that yields
• 26:28
  that high. So we haven't mentioned what the alpha
• 26:30
  is. I mean, people can look this up, but what's
• 26:33
  the alpha on that? The alpha on Adena tends to
• 26:36
  run anywhere from 3 % to 5%. It yields, you know,
• 26:39
  I think on average 2 ,800 pounds an acre. I've
• 26:43
  seen it go as high as 3 ,200 pounds an acre,
• 26:45
  and this has stayed consistent over the last,
• 26:47
  you know, we've been really tracking it commercially
• 26:49
  for the last six years. So even, and it's almost
• 26:53
  to its detriment because it gets so... loaded
• 26:55
  and heavy that you know we had a windstorm a
• 26:58
  few years back and you know we we actually need
• 27:01
  to use a higher tensile string in it because
• 27:02
  it snaps and then we have to go pick them up
• 27:04
  by hand so we've almost bred it to the point
• 27:07
  where it's such a beast that it uh uh you know
• 27:10
  it's almost too heavy for our for our system
• 27:12
  as it is so no no no there's not It's we're working
• 27:15
  around it. We're finding, we're finding the efficiencies.
• 27:17
  It's not, it's a, it's a good problem to have.
• 27:19
  It's a good problem to have for sure. And so,
• 27:22
  so again, beginning back to the stats, it tends
• 27:23
  to run, you know, three and a three to 5 % alpha
• 27:26
  and it's, it's one to one alpha beta. So beta
• 27:28
  tends to sit right at, right at four. So it's
• 27:31
  just a really mild, delicate, you know, noble
• 27:34
  type hop. It's got the, you know, the spiciness.
• 27:39
  a little bit of a floral hint to it, and just
• 27:41
  a tiny little bit of citrus. And that's kind
• 27:43
  of what gives it the American spin, why we call
• 27:45
  it... We don't really want to call it a noble
• 27:48
  hop because there's a lot of... It's a new world
• 27:50
  noble. It's a new world noble, yes. We wouldn't
• 27:52
  want to compare it with something like the German
• 27:54
  nobles. Versatile new world. Dual purpose new
• 27:58
  world noble. Definitely not dual purpose. I know.
• 28:03
  Compare it with yields of traditional noble type
• 28:05
  varieties. You know, you're lucky to get, you
• 28:08
  know, 1 ,400 pounds an acre, 1 ,400 to 1 ,800
• 28:10
  pounds an acre. And the price point for those
• 28:14
  noble varieties can be very high. Sure. So, you
• 28:17
  know, again, the benefit of this, of Adina is
• 28:19
  that, you know, it produces this, you know, amazing
• 28:21
  aroma at such a high volume that the price point
• 28:24
  can be, you know, sometimes half of that of your
• 28:27
  traditional noble varieties. And it has been
• 28:29
  used as a straight -off substitute for noble
• 28:33
  varieties like Hallertau, Milfru, and Styrian.
• 28:36
  The opinion seems to vary a little bit, but it's
• 28:39
  some variation of all of those, right? Yes. Where,
• 28:41
  you know, it can, if it's not a one -to -one,
• 28:44
  it can be used in conjunction with or, you know,
• 28:46
  or I do know people that have done a one -to
• 28:49
  -one, but then I've had people disagree and say,
• 28:51
  well, no, it's more like, you know, this. They're
• 28:55
  all referencing different European nobles. Yes.
• 29:01
  Yeah, we like that one a lot. So you spoke about
• 29:05
  anything else on selection criteria that's interesting.
• 29:09
  We talked about cone to leaf ratio and the percentage
• 29:13
  of the vine that, you know, flowers and produces
• 29:16
  cones. And I do think those are some of the two
• 29:20
  most interesting ones. Do you have anything to
• 29:23
  say? What? Yeah. Well, there's also the internode
• 29:26
  length. And that's another thing that just increases
• 29:29
  the cone volume that you have on your sidearms.
• 29:31
  I mean, typically in a conventional variety,
• 29:33
  the distance between the cone producing regions,
• 29:37
  the internodes, tends to be about six to eight
• 29:40
  inches or more. Like a Chinook can be like over
• 29:43
  a foot. Yeah. Which we love Chinook, by the way.
• 29:47
  We love our Chinook a lot. We love Chinook. Banging.
• 29:51
  Banging. It's just, you know. Comes with a lot
• 29:54
  of... I just don't want the Chinook that's out
• 29:57
  there to hear me. I want them to feel love, too.
• 30:00
  It's a love you have to work for. Yep. Is there
• 30:04
  any other? You have that look where you're going
• 30:13
  down a side road. Oh. I was simply identifying
• 30:18
  the side road. I was not prepared to walk that
• 30:21
  path right now. All right. Well, and then, okay,
• 30:25
  so the last point I think I would make, and this
• 30:26
  could segue into like the future of breeding
• 30:28
  too later, is, and this is something that we're
• 30:31
  kind of realizing as a farm, is that these semi
• 30:33
  -dwarf varieties don't have as high water requirements
• 30:37
  as some of our conventional ones. That's the
• 30:38
  one I was going to mention. So. Here it goes.
• 30:44
  So Azaka and what we're finding out, Adina as
• 30:46
  well, can be irrigated very successfully and
• 30:49
  almost preferentially so on somewhat 20 % to
• 30:52
  30 % less water than what we would usually use
• 30:54
  for typical. We're just going to pick on Chinook.
• 30:56
  Say Chinook. Well, we're going to use Chinook
• 30:58
  as an example. Let's not pick on Chinook. Chinook
• 31:01
  is an awesome hop. It's awesome. But its awesomeness
• 31:07
  is what makes all the agronomic issues worth
• 31:10
  it. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Love it. So would
• 31:13
  you say that the majority of the germplasm is
• 31:17
  more drought tolerant? I would say that the semi
• 31:22
  -dwarfing varieties that we have, because now
• 31:23
  we do have a much more diverse germplasm collection
• 31:26
  than we did 10 years ago. The semi -dwarfing
• 31:28
  varieties that we have sail through droughts
• 31:30
  and water restrictions. Like when the heat dome
• 31:33
  happened a few years back. You know, it did trigger
• 31:36
  some early bloom, but I think that was pretty
• 31:39
  common in the industry. I mean, hops, you know,
• 31:41
  in any plant, if they think that they're going
• 31:44
  to die, they just want to throw out seeds. It's
• 31:46
  the biological response to heavy stressors. But
• 31:50
  in our breeding plots, it was really easy to
• 31:52
  see what was susceptible to the, you know, the
• 31:56
  heat effects, which basically was the plants
• 31:57
  shut down and any irrigation pretty much drowned
• 32:01
  them. you know, there wasn't enough water. But
• 32:05
  the semi -dwarfs sailed through the heat dome
• 32:07
  quite well. And, you know, I was able to see
• 32:10
  lines that were all conventional or, I guess,
• 32:12
  standard height. You know, there'd be pole sections
• 32:15
  that would be, you know, completely wilted, you
• 32:17
  know, from the halfway down due to the heat and
• 32:20
  due to, you know, water issues. But the semi
• 32:22
  -dwarfs did very well. Do you have a theory as
• 32:24
  to why that is? Well, I dug up a lot of roots
• 32:27
  that year, and a lot of it had to do with just
• 32:30
  how the root masses were produced. Oh, interesting.
• 32:34
  One of the most widely produced commercial varieties
• 32:37
  in the industry now that had a lot of issues
• 32:39
  during the heat dome, we went and dug into the
• 32:40
  roots there. Which one was that one? Are we naming
• 32:43
  names? We can't. We're not pointing fingers.
• 32:46
  This is just a conversation. Well, it was Citra,
• 32:49
  and Citra did have a lot of issues that year.
• 32:51
  But again, that's just us not really knowing
• 32:53
  how to manage a heat event like that. that extreme
• 32:56
  so it was a learning experience for the industry
• 32:57
  as a whole so i'm not blaming citra no no i think
• 33:00
  um anyway i got a comment on that but i'll say
• 33:03
  it after you're done go ahead But the root production
• 33:06
  on citra was very just much on the top of the
• 33:09
  soil was what we found. It was usually pretty
• 33:11
  much like the top eight inches of the soil was
• 33:13
  where the majority of the root mass was held.
• 33:16
  Of course, there were some roots that went further
• 33:18
  down, but that's where you're going to have the
• 33:20
  most impact. If the water's going to sit, that's
• 33:24
  where you're going to have the biggest temperature
• 33:25
  differentials and the most potential for problems
• 33:28
  that also includes pests and diseases. Semi dwarf
• 33:32
  hops, while they might not be tall on top, tend
• 33:34
  to have these giant root masses underground.
• 33:39
  There's one that is not going to be commercialized,
• 33:42
  but is a great example, 1624, where the underground
• 33:44
  root mass, it actually is the reason why it's
• 33:46
  not advancing. The underground root mass was
• 33:48
  so large compared to the top root mass that it
• 33:52
  just spread everywhere. So they've got a good
• 33:56
  foundation, is what I'm saying. And I think,
• 34:00
  again, we're still investigating why this might
• 34:02
  be, but it's something that's extremely unique
• 34:03
  about the semi -dwarfs, I feel. Yeah, it's really
• 34:06
  interesting. The root distribution at different
• 34:11
  levels is something I didn't think about. I mean,
• 34:14
  we know that it's really hard to propagate, like
• 34:18
  to cut slips off of these root masses, specifically
• 34:21
  Azaka and Adina to some degree, because they
• 34:25
  just don't have the level of, or I guess the...
• 34:29
  the number of roots and in that upper 12 inches
• 34:33
  let's say you know so it makes it challenging
• 34:35
  sometimes to dig roots but uh yeah it's really
• 34:40
  interesting to think about now my mind's spinning
• 34:42
  but but no that does make a lot of sense and
• 34:44
  not my comment on citra there's nothing negative
• 34:47
  it's just all these varieties these new varieties
• 34:49
  have nuances to growing them And it's just different
• 34:54
  than it was, you know, whatever, 10, 20, 30,
• 34:57
  40, 50, 60 years ago, you know, go all the way
• 35:00
  back to when we had what, like L1 and L2 clusters
• 35:03
  and which were probably the exact same thing.
• 35:07
  But I don't know. But, you know, and so everything
• 35:11
  kind of has a little bit of a twist to it these
• 35:16
  days. And yeah, that's interesting that you dug
• 35:19
  up those roots on citra because we did have,
• 35:20
  we, you know, as an industry, I think, and we
• 35:23
  as Roy Farms had a learning curve that year because
• 35:28
  the tendency for people that year was to pour
• 35:31
  more water on during the heat. And that was kind
• 35:34
  of the right thing to do and kind of not. Because
• 35:37
  when you start hammering it with water, you drive
• 35:39
  all the oxygen out. And if all those roots are
• 35:41
  in the upper 12 inches, let's say, and you drive
• 35:43
  all the oxygen out and you're creating an anaerobic
• 35:45
  environment. you know you're gonna open yourself
• 35:47
  up for we saw more wilt that year wilt that year
• 35:50
  we saw more disease and the plants are only going
• 35:53
  to respire uh below i think 100 degrees 95 degrees
• 35:57
  and so even at night we weren't getting down
• 35:59
  in those temperatures so the plants just were
• 36:01
  not uptaking water and that was you know a big
• 36:05
  learning experience for everybody so yeah your
• 36:07
  inclination is water but you're making it worse
• 36:09
  when you drive all the oxygen out exactly and
• 36:12
  you're saturating the soil so it's just Yeah,
• 36:15
  it was a difficult situation. And we talk about
• 36:20
  the future of breeding. These seasons are becoming
• 36:22
  more and more unpredictable. But we can't breed
• 36:26
  for events like a heat dome. So while it was
• 36:29
  devastating in some sense and just wild to see
• 36:32
  so many hops burning, it was also a selection
• 36:35
  event in breeding that you just can't recreate
• 36:37
  in a lab. You can't do anything. You can't artificially
• 36:41
  create that. So while climate... Stability is
• 36:45
  becoming less so and becoming more, I'd say,
• 36:48
  swinging pendulum -like. It's providing us with
• 36:52
  opportunities. Nature is doing a fantastic job
• 36:55
  of showing us what's going to work and what's
• 36:57
  not. And while it's a challenge to farmers, it's
• 37:01
  also allowing us the opportunity to really advance
• 37:03
  varieties that are versatile or stable in these
• 37:07
  types of climactic instabilities, can tolerate
• 37:10
  drought. We've had water restrictions, water
• 37:13
  being cut off. Yeah, we're having water restrictions
• 37:15
  this year. And this has happened the second year
• 37:18
  in a row. And it's going to happen again next
• 37:20
  year. So instability is becoming the norm, whereas
• 37:24
  it used to be the exception. And some hops are
• 37:27
  very, very sensitive to this, like Centennial,
• 37:29
  for example. If you look sideways at Centennial,
• 37:31
  it goes into bloom and falls off the vine and
• 37:34
  grows to its neighbor. I can say a big bad about
• 37:35
  Centennial. Centennial is a wonderful hop as
• 37:37
  well. But, you know, we need hops that aren't
• 37:41
  going to. And, you know, we've got several in
• 37:42
  our own program, too, that just serve as examples
• 37:46
  that just, you know, we need hops that aren't
• 37:48
  going to, you know, panic and bloom. or quit
• 37:51
  growing the second we get a heat wave, or the
• 37:54
  second some wild weather event happens, or the
• 37:57
  temperature drops, because that's also happened
• 37:58
  too. We've had really warm weather, and then
• 38:00
  it cools off significantly. Like last year. Like
• 38:03
  last year. So from year to year, you're just
• 38:06
  not getting the same story. And so a hop that
• 38:08
  performs consistently throughout all of this
• 38:10
  is what we're really chasing. Yeah. And that's
• 38:12
  been, I mean, we kind of, well, we didn't bring
• 38:16
  this up, and we've kind of breezed past it, long
• 38:21
  -winded name the association for the development
• 38:24
  of hop agronomy i can't believe i just did that
• 38:26
  good job i thought we were trying to forget that
• 38:28
  we are but it's it's it's related to my point
• 38:32
  all right so give me all allow it thank you sir
• 38:34
  the reason why we we tried to keep the adha but
• 38:42
  but do I guess, an attempted rebrand on that
• 38:46
  was because we did want to try and advance hop
• 38:51
  agronomy, right? And so it has been a focus,
• 38:55
  sustainability, hops that are, you know, more
• 38:59
  conducive to automation. Low input. Low input.
• 39:05
  That has been the focus. So while it's nice that
• 39:09
  the heat dome and maybe some other environmental
• 39:12
  situations, helped us proof of concept that it
• 39:18
  has been a focus and and i think that sometimes
• 39:22
  we just kind of breeze past that because it's
• 39:24
  it is just ingrained in our program right you
• 39:27
  know a lot of programs are focusing on that stuff
• 39:30
  and but we're here talking about you know you
• 39:32
  and latitude 46 it's it's been the backbone right
• 39:35
  it's been one of the backbones one of the foundational
• 39:38
  pieces and so i don't think it was by accident
• 39:41
  that we have these varieties that are high yielding
• 39:44
  that pick outside of the middle of the window,
• 39:48
  primarily the middle of the harvesting window
• 39:50
  that's oversaturated. And that, that generally
• 39:55
  speaking, require 25 % less water. No, it's very
• 40:00
  intentional. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know,
• 40:02
  with my history being in research, that was something
• 40:04
  when I came here, that was one of the really
• 40:05
  appealing things was it wasn't just about, you
• 40:08
  know, creating a moneymaker hop. It's about Changing
• 40:12
  what we do for the better generally and this
• 40:14
  is even you know industry -wide impacts, that
• 40:17
  sort of a thing. Because we do collaborate and
• 40:20
  help sponsor quite a bit of public research on
• 40:22
  this farm as well for many of the scientists
• 40:25
  in the industry. Because if we figure something
• 40:28
  out that's going to help the industry, we want
• 40:30
  to share that. There, of course, are things that
• 40:32
  we do and house it. We do keep to ourselves.
• 40:35
  But if it's a management practice or something
• 40:37
  like that that can strengthen the industry as
• 40:40
  a whole, then that's something that we want to
• 40:41
  participate in. Yeah, for sure. It's always tricky.
• 40:46
  Complicated, you know, what do you keep as a
• 40:48
  trade secret? What do you patent? What do you
• 40:51
  share? I think generally speaking, we want to
• 40:54
  share more than anything, but you can get kind
• 40:57
  of lost in the nuances of all that. Well, and
• 41:00
  I mean, it's fair to say that a lot of the programs,
• 41:03
  we're all basically doing the same thing in different
• 41:06
  ways. And so, you know, you don't want to reinvent
• 41:08
  the wheel when we can all just be on the same
• 41:10
  team. So while we're competitors, we're also
• 41:12
  collaborators, I guess would be a good way to
• 41:15
  say it. But, you know, of course, you know, there
• 41:17
  are things that we do keep close to the chest
• 41:19
  as well. But industry -wide management practices
• 41:23
  like, you know, a depowdery mildew management
• 41:25
  technique or pruning technique or something like
• 41:27
  that, it's worth it to share that sort of information
• 41:32
  with our neighbors. Agreed. Absolutely. When
• 41:36
  you're going through the breeding process, what
• 41:38
  are your kind of screening stage gates that you
• 41:43
  use? So just the breeding process, start to finish.
• 41:48
  Like, are you using inter -node length and yield
• 41:51
  and cone -to -leaf ratio before you're even getting
• 41:54
  into the aroma, alpha, whatever, the brewing
• 41:57
  values of the hop? Are you starting with the
• 42:00
  plant itself? Yes, that's something. So just
• 42:04
  to kind of, I'll just kind of summarize the first
• 42:06
  five years of a hop plant in Latitude 46. So,
• 42:11
  of course, it starts off as seed. And we plant
• 42:14
  these seeds out late winter in the greenhouse.
• 42:17
  And in the greenhouse there, we do some basic
• 42:19
  screening for pests and diseases. Powdery mildew
• 42:22
  is really the big one that we screen for in the
• 42:24
  greenhouse. We select out probably about 50 %
• 42:27
  of those. So say we'll start with 20 ,000 seeds.
• 42:30
  We'll go with 10 ,000 plants up into our seedling
• 42:33
  plot. And that's where they'll spend their first
• 42:35
  year. So they go from seed to a string within
• 42:38
  about four months, I'd say. And then when they're
• 42:42
  up at our single hill or excuse me, our seedling
• 42:45
  plot, they'll grow. And that's the point where
• 42:48
  we do actually start taking note on sidearm length
• 42:51
  because we'll actually get cones and production
• 42:54
  on them in that first year. We won't select out
• 42:57
  because of that, but we do take note if it's
• 42:59
  something that's exceptional. And we also do
• 43:01
  some real general. So if we make an alpha cross
• 43:03
  or something like that, we will actually look
• 43:05
  at them at the seedling stage for. on our NIR
• 43:09
  machine for something that might be exceptional,
• 43:12
  just to keep an eye on. But typically in the
• 43:14
  seedling stage, we're still looking at disease,
• 43:16
  and that's where we'll select out our males or
• 43:18
  select males that we want to keep. If we see
• 43:20
  a male with really fantastic sidearm structure
• 43:22
  that's a high producer, the chances are it's
• 43:24
  going to produce some vigorous babies. So we
• 43:27
  also use that yard to select our male germplasm
• 43:30
  as well. From the seedling yard, we'll select
• 43:33
  about 10%. So if we have 10 ,000, we might have...
• 43:37
  you know, a thousand that'll come into our single
• 43:39
  hill. It's actually, it's not even that high.
• 43:41
  It's more like 1%, maybe a hundred that'll come
• 43:42
  into our single hill, a hundred to 500. And then
• 43:46
  they'll live in our single hill yard for the
• 43:48
  next three to four years. And so this is, this
• 43:51
  is the point where we are taking, you know, inner
• 43:54
  node measurements, you know, I'll be doing, you
• 43:56
  know, again, disease assessments. We won't treat
• 43:58
  this yard for anything. We don't treat it for
• 44:00
  aphids, mites, or, or the mildews. barring the
• 44:03
  exception of something really bad happening,
• 44:05
  which does from time to time. You and I have
• 44:07
  battled on that a little bit. Yeah, well, it's
• 44:08
  a challenge because this field is right in the
• 44:10
  middle of production, of a production area. Fortunately,
• 44:13
  the variety next to it, Pico, does not get powdery
• 44:17
  mildew. And it's next to Adina also, which gets
• 44:21
  it at a very low level, but it tolerates it well.
• 44:25
  So we really do put a lot of pressure on these
• 44:27
  hops. Heavy pressure. We wouldn't want them in
• 44:30
  the middle of the CTZ yard, I'd say that. And
• 44:34
  so, yeah, I'll spend the next three years doing
• 44:36
  disease assessments. Jamie does, you know, internode.
• 44:39
  She takes measurements on everything. Currently
• 44:41
  right now, I think we've got, we'll have anywhere
• 44:43
  between 1 ,200 to 1 ,400, 1 ,500 single hills
• 44:46
  at a time. And we won't do any type, we will
• 44:49
  not take a brewer through the single hill yard.
• 44:51
  We'll notice really interesting aromas, but we
• 44:54
  don't do any sensory really on them at this stage.
• 44:57
  We're just looking at agronomics. There's nothing
• 45:00
  worse than having brewers go through your single
• 45:02
  -hill yard and say, oh, I want to breed with
• 45:04
  that. Because without fail, they always tend
• 45:07
  to pick a plant that's only six feet tall, has
• 45:10
  eight cones on it, and they're like, I want to
• 45:13
  build a flagship around this. We're like, no.
• 45:16
  So, yeah, whenever the sales team takes brewers
• 45:18
  out there, I'm always like, don't. I mean, there's
• 45:20
  always a price. There's always a price. And ironically
• 45:24
  enough, that's how Edina was found, was when
• 45:27
  we still had our 7x7 single hill, and we weren't
• 45:29
  doing any type of harvest on it. Again, before
• 45:31
  my time, brewers would go through the single
• 45:34
  hill, and it was selected as a Willamette. Yeah,
• 45:37
  Willamette clone, basically. And it was Scott
• 45:40
  Dorsch, I think, from Odell that actually identified
• 45:43
  it, and you guys kept an eye on it for a bit.
• 45:47
  When I first came here, I dug roots off that
• 45:49
  single hill and planted it in the multi -acre.
• 45:51
  Very atypical way to advance a hop and very risky.
• 45:54
  And I don't know, it's just guys hit a bullseye
• 45:57
  on that. Aren't most of the releases now atypical
• 46:00
  releases? I mean, you got wild hop, a lot of
• 46:03
  wild hops. A lot of chance seedlings. A lot of
• 46:06
  chance seedlings. A lot of open pollination.
• 46:10
  Anyway. Yeah, I mean, it's a game of chance.
• 46:14
  You can do everything intentionally. find a hop
• 46:17
  growing in the ditch next to your field that's
• 46:19
  been there for 40 years. Nature's already done
• 46:21
  the selection for you and it winds up being,
• 46:22
  being a banger and you, you know, but it's again,
• 46:26
  it's, it's, it's a numbers game and, and the
• 46:28
  more you can look through the better. And so
• 46:30
  like. I think I crunched some numbers and I generously
• 46:33
  out of like 15 to 20 ,000 seedlings. So not even
• 46:37
  seeds. You're lucky if you get one hop. So the
• 46:39
  odds are very or one commercially viable hop.
• 46:42
  So, you know, the odds are really stacked against
• 46:45
  them. And again, it's part of our selection method.
• 46:47
  We want to. So, yeah. So after they spend their
• 46:50
  five, their next few years in the single hills
• 46:53
  and then maybe a half to one percent. So out
• 46:56
  of 100 plants, we might take, you know. 10 of
• 46:59
  those and advance them into what we call a multi
• 47:01
  -hill trial so that's a pull section tends to
• 47:03
  be 7 to 14 hills and that's where they're going
• 47:06
  to live for the next you know four to five years
• 47:07
  that's when we you know start looking at them
• 47:10
  a lot more intent uh intently for aroma and brewing
• 47:14
  value characteristics and that's when we start
• 47:16
  to put them in front of brewers too and at that
• 47:18
  point that's where the brewers really drive the
• 47:21
  selection process that's where we you know we
• 47:23
  rely on their knowledge their preferences and
• 47:25
  at that point you know it's like We create this,
• 47:29
  you know, the sandcastle and we're like, you
• 47:32
  guys can either, you know, kick it over or you
• 47:34
  can add seashells to it and make a beer. So it's
• 47:37
  kind of like, hey, any of these that you're brewing
• 47:39
  with have been vetted. Exactly. And it's just
• 47:42
  whatever. Yeah. If you like it, great. Yeah.
• 47:45
  Yeah. And, you know, brewers, they're looking
• 47:46
  for oils. They're looking for alpha. They're
• 47:48
  looking for aroma. But the agronomics have to
• 47:51
  be there before you even get to that stage. So
• 47:54
  that's why, like, yeah. Brewer -driven at a point,
• 47:57
  but early on it's really important that we just
• 47:59
  focus on the economics and the agronomics of
• 48:03
  growing these. Because no grower wants to grow
• 48:06
  a hop that's only going to produce five bales.
• 48:09
  Not even remotely. I mean, I enjoy a good challenge,
• 48:13
  but I don't think we need those varieties. Well,
• 48:16
  and I don't think brewers want to pay $15 a pound
• 48:19
  either. Most definitely they do not want to pay
• 48:21
  $15 a pound. I mean, I can't speak for the brewers,
• 48:24
  but I'm speculating. I feel confident in saying
• 48:28
  you're correct on that. What, I don't know, just,
• 48:34
  I mean, you have notes there. We kind of had
• 48:36
  some agenda items. Before I get into a couple
• 48:39
  of my questions, do you have anything we feel
• 48:41
  we haven't covered so far that you want to add
• 48:44
  to what we've talked about? I think so. We've
• 48:47
  kind of touched on a lot of these points. You
• 48:49
  talked about the rebranding. What were you talking
• 48:52
  about with the rebranding? Well, yeah. In 2017,
• 48:55
  we rebranded to the Association for the Development
• 48:58
  of Hoppogronomy. Again, because we wanted to.
• 49:00
  It rolls off the tongue. Yeah, creating swag
• 49:06
  with that was interesting. A lot of words. But,
• 49:11
  you know, it was, again, kind of to show the
• 49:13
  industry that we're focused on more than just
• 49:14
  breeding. And then, obviously, that name. It
• 49:19
  was just cumbersome from the get -go. It was
• 49:20
  cumbersome. Very cumbersome. It was an attempt
• 49:22
  to communicate our intent. We had to rebrand
• 49:27
  again. Nobody thought of putting a slogan underneath
• 49:30
  a name instead that communicates the intent?
• 49:33
  I don't know. I told you, I was a really good
• 49:35
  brand manager, Drew. That was not on you. That
• 49:39
  was the growing pains of what is now Latitude
• 49:45
  46. Which is actually one of my topics is this
• 49:48
  whole trajectory and journey of what was or what
• 49:55
  started as the American Dwarf Hop Association,
• 49:57
  which is now Latitude 46. Right. Right. So, yeah,
• 50:01
  we rebranded to Latitude 46 in 2023. And it's
• 50:04
  just at that point, we just. really wanted a
• 50:07
  whole new image. We weren't trying to carry on,
• 50:11
  you know, I mean, we're not going to lose our
• 50:13
  identity from what we began as the American Dwarf
• 50:16
  Hop Association, which again, when we rebranded
• 50:19
  to the long words, was one of the things we were
• 50:22
  worried about. That was why we kept the acronym
• 50:24
  too, is we didn't want to lose our identity as
• 50:26
  the company that we started as. But at this point,
• 50:30
  I think everybody pretty much knows who we are
• 50:33
  and what we are now. And Latitude 46 reflects,
• 50:36
  well, first of all, the latitude where the best
• 50:38
  hops are grown, which is also Yakima and same
• 50:42
  in Germany as well. And reflects that we're a
• 50:45
  Pacific Northwest hop breeding company. So it's
• 50:48
  kind of a new identity. It's just a fresher look.
• 50:51
  But our objectives are still the same. encompass
• 50:55
  the whole biological systems approach to breeding.
• 50:59
  We're not just breeding for what you see on the
• 51:01
  vine. We're also breeding for what you see under
• 51:03
  the soil and what winds up in the final product.
• 51:07
  Yeah, that's a good way of summarizing it for
• 51:09
  sure. So this one thing that I've struggled with
• 51:16
  over the years is what is the right marketing
• 51:19
  approach for our breeding program? And that's...
• 51:24
  gone through a lot of gyrations and when i say
• 51:29
  marketing i mean how are we going to communicate
• 51:31
  our purpose our intent our products and you know
• 51:37
  what's the strategy behind who is going to do
• 51:39
  that and how are we going to manage the program
• 51:42
  because management and release and communication
• 51:47
  of genetics internally at latitude 46 and and
• 51:54
  roy farms has always been a pretty loaded conversation
• 52:00
  i would say not to go too far down this road
• 52:04
  but but it's always i think management has been
• 52:08
  read as control and for a lot of latitude 46's
• 52:15
  history we At Latitude 46, we're going after
• 52:22
  this free market idea. And I really think it
• 52:26
  hurt the program's growth. It was very confusing.
• 52:30
  And I would argue that it didn't help the program
• 52:34
  or the owners of the program. Nice idea. Good
• 52:38
  intentions. Nice. I don't even know if I would
• 52:41
  agree that it was a nice idea. It was an interesting
• 52:43
  idea. Well intended, though. Yeah, I think when
• 52:49
  you really drill down into the root of what the
• 52:52
  idea was. Do you want to just explain that? What?
• 52:56
  Do you want to just explain the free market idea?
• 52:58
  Well, the free market idea was born out of Global
• 53:03
  Alpha and probably our experience and understanding.
• 53:10
  rb and roy farms and probably the other two owners
• 53:13
  idea and understanding of how business was conducted
• 53:16
  prior to the growth of private genetic programs
• 53:21
  and maybe more specifically aroma releases and
• 53:25
  other types of releases out of those programs
• 53:27
  and so the understanding and experience had been
• 53:30
  is that you know brewers wanted less control
• 53:33
  over these varieties and and we as a program
• 53:38
  were wanting to to try and follow that desire
• 53:47
  slash guidance and and there was also maybe the
• 53:51
  side benefit of that you know and side idea that
• 53:55
  it would be nice if every grower could have the
• 53:59
  opportunity to grow these varieties the challenge
• 54:03
  with that was that that we figured out obviously
• 54:06
  maybe it was obvious and we just didn't see it
• 54:10
  because we were plowing down that path too too
• 54:14
  blindly was that i mean without management you
• 54:18
  run into a lot of problems right quality you
• 54:21
  know supply and demand inventory issues it's
• 54:24
  harder to manage those things with a quote -unquote
• 54:27
  free market mentality and so we've shifted gears
• 54:31
  now to taking more of a a management slash leadership
• 54:37
  role in our own company. There's other challenges
• 54:41
  that we've found of having other partners distribute
• 54:46
  those varieties and more importantly, communicate
• 54:51
  the value of those varieties when they have other
• 54:55
  competing agendas. And I don't mean agenda in
• 55:00
  a negative sense. It's just that all these companies
• 55:02
  and businesses, including our own, have our primary
• 55:05
  objectives as a business. And so it's hard to
• 55:09
  take something that's primary for us and expect
• 55:11
  that it's going to be primary for another like
• 55:15
  hot merchant or distributor. Maybe that's the
• 55:18
  case, but we haven't ran into that in the past.
• 55:20
  And so we've recently decided like within the
• 55:22
  last year that we need to basically manage our
• 55:26
  own program. and be the communicator and the
• 55:30
  marketer and actually manage the supply and be
• 55:34
  more, I guess, grown up to some degree and probably
• 55:39
  look more like what the breeding programs look
• 55:43
  like. But we're also struggling with, too, it's
• 55:46
  like, okay, well, what do brewers want out of
• 55:49
  these breeding programs? Because I don't think
• 55:52
  they're completely satisfied with probably public
• 55:56
  or private breeding. generally speaking right
• 55:59
  and so that's something that we're trying to
• 56:01
  wrestle with now is that you know given the fact
• 56:04
  that we've realized that we need to have more
• 56:06
  management over our program and that like the
• 56:08
  the full -blown free market mentality didn't
• 56:12
  work for us what does the next phase look like
• 56:15
  you know how can we improve on the current system
• 56:18
  how can we better meet the brewer's needs with
• 56:21
  this program i'll stop there but that that's
• 56:24
  my long -winded Point on like what are what are
• 56:28
  the challenges that we're having? To Drew's point
• 56:32
  like what other challenges or do you guys have
• 56:34
  anything to say on that or I? Just say that like
• 56:37
  the tactic that we have towards releasing a hot
• 56:41
  variety commercially Going you know as far as
• 56:45
  actually trademarking branding a name We're very
• 56:48
  different, I think, in this sense compared to
• 56:50
  other programs. We do kind of a slow burn where
• 56:53
  we get them in the hands of brewers, brew with
• 56:55
  them for several years. We haven't named a variety
• 56:57
  since Adina. We've had several that we could
• 56:59
  have named. But spending all the money in branding
• 57:02
  and release and trademarking a variety, it's
• 57:06
  very costly, first of all. And second of all,
• 57:08
  if you don't already have, I guess, a fan base
• 57:10
  built up behind it, then you're going to put
• 57:13
  all this money into a campaign and it's going
• 57:15
  to be forgotten about. very quickly and so you
• 57:18
  know investing in the front end you know building
• 57:21
  that traction and also giving brewers access
• 57:23
  to something that's experimental so when you
• 57:25
  give a brewer a number they're they're getting
• 57:26
  something unique they're getting something special
• 57:28
  something that they can't buy on the market and
• 57:31
  so you're building these relationships with with
• 57:33
  brewers and again they're entirely responsible
• 57:35
  for advancing varieties at this point And getting
• 57:39
  them excited about having something that nobody
• 57:41
  else does. And then you can scale it up into
• 57:44
  larger acre trials and get it in the hands of
• 57:47
  more brewers, build the reputation for it. And
• 57:50
  at that point, then you trademark and launch
• 57:53
  it. So I'd say that we invest more just on building
• 57:58
  the variety's reputation. and also making sure
• 58:02
  that its agronomics and everything stay robust
• 58:04
  over these years. Because if we find something
• 58:06
  that's what we think is a banger, trademark it,
• 58:09
  release it, and then plant it out in multiple
• 58:10
  areas and it tanks, that's a lot of investment
• 58:14
  just lost. And so this is also kind of, I guess,
• 58:18
  more of a conservative, safe plan and a way to
• 58:20
  do things, too. Because there's nothing worse
• 58:23
  than giving the brewer something that they get
• 58:25
  really excited about and then having to say,
• 58:27
  oh, I'm sorry, we can't grow that anymore. I
• 58:31
  would say that for the most part, I appreciate
• 58:34
  the conservative approach on releases. I would
• 58:37
  say, too, that we've probably burned a little
• 58:41
  too slow and been a little too conservative.
• 58:43
  I'd agree. And I think most of that was probably
• 58:45
  due to just trying to find our way. And we had
• 58:49
  to figure out what we were doing as a program
• 58:52
  before we start putting stuff out in the industry.
• 58:55
  And maybe that applies more specifically to the
• 58:59
  last. I would call it three to four years, right?
• 59:02
  But I think we're ready to hit the gas. And,
• 59:04
  you know, what we saw at the experience over
• 59:11
  in Seattle when we did that with a bunch of our
• 59:14
  varieties was kind of a proof of concept that
• 59:17
  we do have some really good stuff in the program.
• 59:19
  And it's been sitting there a little dormant,
• 59:21
  you know, waiting for us to grow up as a program,
• 59:25
  I would say. Right. And the experience that you're
• 59:28
  talking about is the hop experience that we had
• 59:32
  over in Seattle, where we had 12 different varieties
• 59:35
  that were in advancement. Some of these have
• 59:37
  been taking notes on for four years. Some of
• 59:39
  them had only been in there for a year to two.
• 59:42
  We sent hop samples out to several brewers, let
• 59:45
  them do their own sensory, select their favorites.
• 59:47
  And then we sent them pellet samples to brew
• 59:49
  with all different styles. And this wasn't a
• 59:51
  beer competition. It was just do this. use this
• 59:55
  hop, how you would use it in house and let's
• 59:57
  see how it performs. And it was, it was fantastic.
• 1:00:01
  Yeah. The brewers, uh, you know, selected the
• 1:00:04
  styles that they, their, their favorite styles
• 1:00:06
  and each one used a different hop and, uh, it
• 1:00:10
  was, and, and, you know, it was a brewer only
• 1:00:12
  event. So only brewers were there and it was
• 1:00:14
  just really neat watching, you know, All these
• 1:00:17
  different breweries come together and taste test
• 1:00:19
  these hops and discuss it. It was just a real
• 1:00:22
  collaborative, fun experience. Fun, for sure.
• 1:00:25
  We had one brewer said, man, this feels like
• 1:00:28
  the old days, which I thought was a really great
• 1:00:30
  comment. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Well, I think the
• 1:00:34
  days are turning to better right now in some
• 1:00:38
  ways. It's still a pretty stressful time for
• 1:00:40
  everybody, brewers, growers, everybody. So it
• 1:00:43
  was nice to have a little fun. Mixed in with
• 1:00:46
  it all. For sure. Talked about beer experience
• 1:00:50
  and some of the challenges and varieties and
• 1:00:52
  things that are sitting dormant. What are you
• 1:00:55
  excited about moving forward? What varieties
• 1:00:59
  do you have in there besides Adina and hopefully
• 1:01:03
  the third resurgence of Azaka, we'll call it?
• 1:01:09
  What else are you excited about in there? Well,
• 1:01:12
  you kind of alluded to it earlier. We are really
• 1:01:14
  kind of hitting the gas on this program, and
• 1:01:17
  that's really exciting. So we're taking a few
• 1:01:21
  more risks and advancing some varieties into
• 1:01:23
  calculated risks. Definitely, it's good for me.
• 1:01:29
  Again, I tend to be fairly cautious, so this
• 1:01:31
  takes me out of my comfort zone. A little cautious
• 1:01:33
  kitten. Yeah, cautious Claire over here. But
• 1:01:37
  we're just going for it. Whereas I might advance
• 1:01:43
  one or two varieties to multi -acre trials. This
• 1:01:46
  year we put three into multi -acre trials, and
• 1:01:48
  we're doing four more that are kind of in a hybrid.
• 1:01:50
  So what we consider our elite status when we
• 1:01:52
  go into multi -acre, and then we've got four
• 1:01:54
  more that are in between elite. And then we also
• 1:01:57
  advance probably more advancements from our single
• 1:02:02
  hills into the advanced program this year as
• 1:02:05
  well too. So we really just kind of mushroom
• 1:02:08
  clouded this year, and it's exciting. really
• 1:02:11
  interested a harvest is gonna gonna turn out
• 1:02:13
  well i think the important thing too to note
• 1:02:15
  is that we're not short -circuiting that intentional
• 1:02:18
  process that we spoke about earlier right it's
• 1:02:21
  like a lot of that stuff has been sitting there
• 1:02:23
  and you've we've had them slated for advancement
• 1:02:25
  for a while we just just with you know some of
• 1:02:28
  the changes in the industry and just you know
• 1:02:30
  figuring out our direction as a program too.
• 1:02:32
  We were just kind of in kind of a holding pattern
• 1:02:34
  for the last couple of years, so to speak. Because
• 1:02:36
  on average, the varieties that we actually propagated
• 1:02:40
  this year and recently planted out in the field,
• 1:02:43
  they're a little later than expected because
• 1:02:45
  of the ongoing challenges of propagation that
• 1:02:48
  I am just amazed at every time we go and have
• 1:02:52
  something propagated. I'm like, this is just
• 1:02:54
  another reminder that we need to do it in -house
• 1:02:56
  because it just gets all screwed up. But anyway.
• 1:03:01
  I mean, it's, it's, it's hard though. Propagation
• 1:03:03
  is a hard game. Come on. You guys are, you guys
• 1:03:06
  are doing a fine job down there. We just need
• 1:03:08
  to expand your, expand your working space. I've
• 1:03:11
  got awesome ladies. I know you guys are awesome.
• 1:03:14
  So we just need to continue our awesomeness and
• 1:03:16
  propagation. So yeah. So out of the ones that,
• 1:03:22
  that, I mean, how many did we just plan out out
• 1:03:24
  in the field? How many number like varieties?
• 1:03:27
  Uh, there's going to be seven total. There's
• 1:03:29
  three in the ground right now. Yeah. The four
• 1:03:31
  going in next week. So for the elites or. Yeah.
• 1:03:35
  Like we're putting a few acres. What was the
• 1:03:38
  number of acres of each one of those seven? I
• 1:03:40
  think they wind up being three. It looked bigger,
• 1:03:42
  more than two when I was. Yeah. Yeah. And so.
• 1:03:45
  And then we've got 1631. That's. going to be
• 1:03:49
  in full production this year. That was our elite
• 1:03:51
  that we advanced last year. Again, another brewer
• 1:03:54
  -driven selection. This one's very cool. Everything
• 1:03:58
  that's going in it is very cool, but I've just
• 1:04:01
  had a lot more time to observe this one. On average,
• 1:04:06
  those seven varieties that we're advancing, on
• 1:04:11
  average, those have been agronomically vetted
• 1:04:14
  for how many years? I'd say on average probably
• 1:04:18
  four. Okay. In the multi -hill plot. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:04:21
  yeah. But some of these, there's a couple of
• 1:04:23
  those in there that date back to our archival
• 1:04:26
  germplasm and then a few that are fairly new
• 1:04:28
  crosses as well. And most of those are high,
• 1:04:31
  most or all of those are high yielding. Maybe
• 1:04:33
  one is maybe I would call it more industry standard.
• 1:04:39
  Again, like we're planting them in a different
• 1:04:41
  location. And so that's always a really good
• 1:04:42
  test because. A lot of times, you see yield differences
• 1:04:46
  when you plant them in new locations. On their
• 1:04:50
  very small plots, I'd say that they're average
• 1:04:54
  to above average yield. But again, one of the
• 1:04:58
  challenges - Average for us or average for industry?
• 1:05:01
  Industry. I mean, the industry average is about
• 1:05:03
  1 ,750 pounds, I think, to 1 ,800. Yeah, I should
• 1:05:10
  hope that - cost a brewer is not going to be
• 1:05:12
  great if anything is under 1 ,700 pounds. But
• 1:05:15
  one of the challenges, I guess, of assessing
• 1:05:19
  these, like really giving them a good chance
• 1:05:21
  in the multi -hill advanced yard, is that you
• 1:05:25
  really can't farm just that plot section. So
• 1:05:28
  we're doing training timing tends to be the same
• 1:05:31
  across the advanced yard. We have to farm them
• 1:05:34
  the same. We can't farm to those specific genetics
• 1:05:38
  like you would in a commercial field. We observe
• 1:05:41
  them and see how they perform under this standard
• 1:05:45
  set of conditions. But now that they're expanded
• 1:05:47
  into the larger acre trials, we get to give them
• 1:05:50
  more individual attention. And that's when we
• 1:05:54
  can really see their true potential. And that's
• 1:05:57
  what's really exciting is because now we're actually
• 1:05:59
  going to be able to see, you know, we've gotten
• 1:06:01
  them out of the gate. Now we get to see if they
• 1:06:02
  can step on the gas. And this is the first time
• 1:06:05
  that we get to actually pick any of them on a
• 1:06:07
  commercial picker. It's very... important step
• 1:06:10
  because they can you know look great out in the
• 1:06:12
  field but you know the harvestability is a huge
• 1:06:15
  factor that's actually what what you know killed
• 1:06:17
  our last elite line it just you know it's a great
• 1:06:21
  smelling hop it yielded decent but the the harvest
• 1:06:24
  aspect of it um just kind of um ended the game
• 1:06:28
  for it which one is that one 1624 it's the one
• 1:06:32
  where um it slid down the string so they had
• 1:06:35
  to bottom cut with machetes and then Didn't that
• 1:06:38
  thing yield good even though it was only basically
• 1:06:41
  halfway up? Yeah, it still yielded very good.
• 1:06:45
  See, if anyone out there, what was it again?
• 1:06:47
  16 what? 1624. If anyone out there wants to sponsor
• 1:06:50
  1624, I know some people have used it out there.
• 1:06:53
  I want to sponsor a low trellis yard. I think
• 1:06:55
  Wayne Wambles has a tattoo of it on his arm.
• 1:06:59
  There is a tattoo of 1624 out in the world. Really?
• 1:07:04
  Oh, yeah. Megan, have you ever thought about
• 1:07:07
  getting a tattoo with the experimental number
• 1:07:10
  on it? Absolutely not. What? Have you? No. I
• 1:07:15
  mean, doesn't that, like, assure a breakup if
• 1:07:17
  you get a tattoo? This just means it's not going
• 1:07:20
  to go anywhere. It's corrupt, yeah. It means
• 1:07:21
  it's doomed. I don't know if that's... Get a
• 1:07:24
  little Hopcone Tramp stamp. One time I got my
• 1:07:28
  wife's name tattooed on me, and she made me cover
• 1:07:33
  it up. You do this nice gesture and she's like,
• 1:07:39
  no. Well, no, it was actually a bit of a misunderstanding
• 1:07:43
  where I told her jokingly, next time I get a
• 1:07:48
  tattoo, I'm also going to get your name tattooed
• 1:07:50
  on my chest. Was it in old English? No, it was
• 1:07:55
  like in cursive or something. And I was joking.
• 1:07:59
  And she goes, oh, okay. So I thought, I guess
• 1:08:03
  she wants me to do that. So I came home and she
• 1:08:05
  goes, what the hell did you do? And I said, you
• 1:08:07
  said, okay. So I thought you wanted me to. And
• 1:08:09
  she goes, I was joking. You're like, well, I
• 1:08:13
  did all this. You were both joking. Yeah. Miscommunications
• 1:08:19
  in marriage. It's, you know, going back to earlier,
• 1:08:22
  you know, love, it's a labor. Otherwise you end
• 1:08:28
  up with tattoos. Twice because you had to get
• 1:08:32
  it covered. So it's love is pain, right? Oh,
• 1:08:35
  yeah. But you know what? It's all right. What
• 1:08:39
  if you fell in love with like multiple? You could
• 1:08:42
  just have numbers written all over your body.
• 1:08:44
  I mean, start looking like the Matrix. As far
• 1:08:47
  as the tattoo goes, I mean, a hop could be a
• 1:08:51
  hop. So don't you think that it's not that crazy
• 1:08:54
  to get a tattoo of a hop if you're a brewer?
• 1:08:58
  No, I think it's great. I was just wondering
• 1:09:01
  if Megan would ever get that. Oh, yeah. No, no.
• 1:09:04
  1624 was a really unique, or is a really unique.
• 1:09:07
  We still have it. We're looking at maybe trying
• 1:09:09
  to grow it on low trellis in the future. The
• 1:09:12
  cone shape is really unique, and I think that's
• 1:09:14
  why. There's some heavy, heavy low trellis lobbyists
• 1:09:19
  around here. Wait, how much did this thing yield
• 1:09:24
  on standard trellis? On standard trellis, I think
• 1:09:28
  its highest yield was 2 ,800 pounds. But dude,
• 1:09:32
  the thing never got above halfway up the string.
• 1:09:34
  So it did 2 ,800 pounds on half the string. And
• 1:09:37
  it was one of those hops that if there was a
• 1:09:40
  temperature or any kind of climactic event that
• 1:09:43
  was sudden or outside of the norm, it would just
• 1:09:48
  stop growing. And so that was a big issue. So
• 1:09:51
  I think last year it was maybe nine feet tall.
• 1:09:55
  seven feet tall. What did it yield? When it was
• 1:09:59
  nine or seven feet tall. We were still getting
• 1:10:01
  2 ,000, 2 ,200 pounds out of it. Because the
• 1:10:05
  cones were so dense on that thing. It looked
• 1:10:08
  like a Christmas tree of cones. It was so heavy.
• 1:10:12
  That was the problem. It didn't hit the wire,
• 1:10:14
  but it was so heavy that it would slide down
• 1:10:16
  the wire. Then you'd wind up with the sag on
• 1:10:18
  the end so you couldn't use a bottom cutter on
• 1:10:20
  it. It would work great on low trellis. Yeah,
• 1:10:22
  and the aroma is phenomenal. I don't care if
• 1:10:24
  it sags. If it yields 2 ,800 pounds. But that's,
• 1:10:28
  again, like every single string has to be hand
• 1:10:30
  -cut with a machete. No, if you put on low trellis,
• 1:10:33
  we run those half -million -dollar machines that
• 1:10:35
  are sitting out there collecting dust over the
• 1:10:37
  top of it. Look, just run a wire down through
• 1:10:41
  the middle of it at 10 feet and let it grab onto
• 1:10:44
  that. No, you've got to cut it with a machete.
• 1:10:48
  What's that? Would you be able to use a top cutter?
• 1:10:51
  You can't get a top cutter underneath there if
• 1:10:52
  you're going to wire down it. We did drop the
• 1:10:54
  trellis trying to get around this. We did shorten
• 1:10:57
  the trellis to the max or the lowest height.
• 1:10:59
  15 feet, I think, was the lowest height it could
• 1:11:01
  go, correct? And it still didn't quite reach
• 1:11:03
  it. It would almost get there. If it could just
• 1:11:05
  get over that wire, it would have been fine,
• 1:11:08
  which it did on a 7x7. This was the interesting
• 1:11:10
  thing about different planting configurations.
• 1:11:13
  But the slide just... It just slides too much.
• 1:11:17
  I mean, this thing is so heavy. You couldn't
• 1:11:18
  even put your arms around it. It's that big.
• 1:11:21
  Would you say the slide was electric? Boogie,
• 1:11:24
  woogie, woogie. We need to revisit this discussion.
• 1:11:29
  We will. Later. Yep. What else we got? I could
• 1:11:33
  have given some commentary on the open source
• 1:11:37
  piece. Like, we only touched on half of that
• 1:11:40
  after you made your point. Yeah. Free market.
• 1:11:43
  You said open source. The more I think about
• 1:11:45
  it, the more I think that it is kind of a strange
• 1:11:52
  anomaly that exists in the hop industry that's
• 1:11:56
  probably not in other industries to the same
• 1:11:59
  standard. So, you know, if you look at really
• 1:12:05
  anything specialized out there, whether it's
• 1:12:09
  Monsanto, they patent everything and then they
• 1:12:11
  decide how... those products are going to be
• 1:12:14
  used and where they are used at or you know you
• 1:12:20
  have other examples like in tree fruit where
• 1:12:22
  things will be patented and then a royalty will
• 1:12:24
  be collected but it'll be collected on the rootstock
• 1:12:26
  not on production and managing production and
• 1:12:32
  so what happens is it gets like anybody can plant
• 1:12:34
  it if you'll pay for the pay for the royalty
• 1:12:37
  at rootstock and uh that sounds like a music
• 1:12:41
  festival Rootstock. Maybe it should be. Maybe
• 1:12:45
  it should be a Latin 46 music festival. Rootstock.
• 1:12:49
  That's fantastic. I like that. All right. Trademark
• 1:12:53
  that. We said it first here. Rootstock. On June
• 1:12:59
  27th, 2025. Yep. Date of first use. There you
• 1:13:03
  go. But when, you know, organizations are. making
• 1:13:09
  it quote open source, but you have to pay royalty.
• 1:13:12
  The whole thing just gets out of hand and it
• 1:13:14
  gets way over planted and then nobody makes money.
• 1:13:17
  The quality goes down. The consumer's not happy
• 1:13:19
  with that. And I know that, that people want
• 1:13:23
  options. Brewers want options from where they
• 1:13:26
  buy from and all of that. And I, I support that.
• 1:13:28
  And at the same time, there's not a clean way
• 1:13:32
  that I'm aware of where you can make sure that
• 1:13:36
  the economics stay good for the farmer in a sustainable
• 1:13:40
  way. And the quality and economics for the brewer
• 1:13:43
  are good without having some level of management
• 1:13:48
  where the, you know, an open source, like anybody
• 1:13:52
  can grow and sell. It won't work. It is self
• 1:13:57
  -defeating. I mean, like Apple doesn't make the
• 1:14:00
  iPhone, you know, schematics and give them away.
• 1:14:04
  that anybody can make an iphone because it would
• 1:14:06
  run the thing into the ground you know so it
• 1:14:12
  just happens that this industry is so small and
• 1:14:15
  so geographically undiverse that i think it gets
• 1:14:22
  talked about a lot more but you have to have
• 1:14:25
  that i think to some level i agree to some level
• 1:14:28
  you have to have the management it can't just
• 1:14:31
  be open sourced I also think there's a real fine
• 1:14:35
  line there. And I feel at times we cross it as
• 1:14:42
  an industry where management does take the form
• 1:14:47
  of control and it can be limiting. And so, yeah,
• 1:14:55
  I don't know if I have the answer for that, like
• 1:15:00
  how you would construct a program. i think we're
• 1:15:03
  keeping all of that in mind as we move forward
• 1:15:07
  right it's like how widely distributed is our
• 1:15:10
  product um how can brewers uh engage with that
• 1:15:14
  and source it um is something that we're trying
• 1:15:17
  to keep top of mind who's growing it i mean it
• 1:15:21
  can't just be a free -for -all but i do kind
• 1:15:25
  of feel like the current genetic landscape and
• 1:15:30
  the The inventory issue and a lot of other things
• 1:15:36
  are contributing to these industry camps. And
• 1:15:39
  as you said, the industry is too small, I think,
• 1:15:42
  to really flourish with that mentality and that
• 1:15:47
  outcome. Wait, with what mentality and outcome?
• 1:15:53
  Oh, the open source. No, I mean, crossing over
• 1:15:57
  into control that limits. limits the options
• 1:16:03
  for everybody grower distributor and brewer you
• 1:16:09
  know i was talking about the other the flip side
• 1:16:12
  of open source which is management but management
• 1:16:17
  can take the form of too much control oh yeah
• 1:16:21
  yeah yeah i think it's it's interesting if you
• 1:16:24
  go back to the what is the purpose of a breeding
• 1:16:27
  program in the first place And what is the ultimate
• 1:16:31
  goal? The ultimate goal is to have the owners,
• 1:16:36
  well, not everybody. Sometimes a breeding program
• 1:16:39
  can be for revenue. But generally speaking, I
• 1:16:44
  would say my understanding, and particularly
• 1:16:48
  for our breeding program, and I'm sure many others,
• 1:16:53
  is we want our farms full. We want to grow hops.
• 1:16:57
  That's what we want to do. We also want a win
• 1:16:59
  -win. On the other side, the benefit to the brewer
• 1:17:04
  is high -quality, novel varieties. If you just
• 1:17:10
  say we want full farms and novel varieties, enter
• 1:17:14
  breeding, but how do you manage that so you get
• 1:17:18
  both parties what they want? Full farms, novel
• 1:17:23
  tools for brewers, and then... I think everybody's
• 1:17:27
  trying to figure that out, and there's a lot
• 1:17:28
  of different ways to skin that cat. But it's
• 1:17:31
  definitely not easy, that's for sure. No, it's
• 1:17:34
  not easy. I think brewers want more than just
• 1:17:40
  novel varieties, too. I think that's what we
• 1:17:43
  talk about a lot, because on the surface level,
• 1:17:46
  that's what the programs are doing, are releasing
• 1:17:48
  new varieties, novel varieties, new flavors.
• 1:17:51
  Right. But I think brewers also want... agronomics
• 1:17:55
  that lead to a cost per pound that might be more
• 1:17:59
  in alignment with the economic pressures of their
• 1:18:03
  businesses right now. And they also want the
• 1:18:07
  ability to source those from people that they
• 1:18:11
  want to do business with. And in some cases,
• 1:18:15
  I don't think that all those boxes are checked
• 1:18:17
  for the brewer. I totally agree. And so, yeah,
• 1:18:21
  it's not just about novel varieties, right? Right.
• 1:18:24
  I know. Everything that comes with that, ultimately,
• 1:18:28
  like, yes, there's a lot more that goes with
• 1:18:31
  it. But that's what the management and the programs
• 1:18:34
  are supposed to do. Yeah. Yeah. To put a pin
• 1:18:41
  in this, open source won't work for anybody.
• 1:18:45
  No. And then to put a pin on the flip side of
• 1:18:49
  that, I don't think that the way that we're,
• 1:18:53
  as an industry, I would say just when you take
• 1:18:56
  all the breeding programs, I don't think the
• 1:18:59
  way that we're doing it is going to be how the
• 1:19:03
  programs are managed in the future. That's like
• 1:19:07
  a long -winded way of saying it. I don't think
• 1:19:09
  that the way that we are currently doing it is
• 1:19:11
  working completely either, right? There's pluses
• 1:19:15
  and minuses on both sides of that coin. Well,
• 1:19:18
  and you can kind of look at the open source as
• 1:19:20
  kind of parallel to like what the public breeding
• 1:19:23
  program does. So that would be. Open source with
• 1:19:27
  no royalties attached, of course. And there are
• 1:19:29
  varieties that are developed out of that that
• 1:19:30
  are released. And you think like, oh, there's
• 1:19:32
  no royalties. This is great. Why wouldn't everybody
• 1:19:35
  be planting these as much as they want? Well,
• 1:19:37
  there's no marketing arm to push those varieties
• 1:19:39
  to brewers. There's no incentive for brewers
• 1:19:42
  to take these public varieties and build a flagship
• 1:19:45
  around them. Because you're also relying on merchants
• 1:19:49
  and other sales teams that, you know, either
• 1:19:52
  have their own breeding programs or already have
• 1:19:54
  a suite of hops that they like to sell brewers.
• 1:19:57
  So there's not really an incentive for the merchants
• 1:19:59
  or the salespeople to push these new varieties
• 1:20:02
  out either. So even though there's been a few
• 1:20:04
  releases in the public domain these last couple
• 1:20:06
  of years, they really haven't taken off. And
• 1:20:10
  they just tend to kind of stagnate. And because
• 1:20:13
  there isn't any quality control, there isn't
• 1:20:15
  any real standard of... what that hop needs to
• 1:20:21
  be. There's nobody driving that. There's no accountability
• 1:20:23
  to it. So I think their most recent release,
• 1:20:26
  Vera, I feel is going to probably... primed to
• 1:20:30
  be the most successful public variety release
• 1:20:32
  because there is push from the Brewers Association
• 1:20:35
  and interest from the industry that's going to
• 1:20:37
  kind of pull it out of that just kind of no man's
• 1:20:40
  land, the twilight zone that a lot of these releases
• 1:20:42
  tend to go to. I mean, I should know more about
• 1:20:44
  that. We have it on our farm. Yeah, Roy Farms
• 1:20:47
  is one of the first farms to grow it. And again,
• 1:20:50
  this is the collaboration that we have in supporting
• 1:20:53
  public research while also having our private
• 1:20:55
  objectives as well. And, you know, it's an exciting
• 1:20:59
  new hop. You know, it's, I think, probably one
• 1:21:04
  of the best ones out of the public program in
• 1:21:06
  quite a while. Again, not knocking any of the
• 1:21:08
  ones that have come out in recent years, but
• 1:21:09
  this one's just been, I think, just on the front
• 1:21:12
  end of it, the awareness of it and everything
• 1:21:14
  is going to help drive its success, hopefully
• 1:21:17
  a bit more. But that remains to be seen. It's
• 1:21:19
  its first year on the market. But, yeah, but
• 1:21:21
  again, like the main point is there's just no
• 1:21:23
  quality control, no volume control. And so that
• 1:21:28
  really leaves varieties that don't have this
• 1:21:30
  vulnerable to... If a brewer gets a hop in it
• 1:21:32
  and it's bad, and it might not be the hop's fault
• 1:21:34
  if it's OG, if it's picked out of its window,
• 1:21:38
  if it's seeded or something like that, they'll
• 1:21:40
  never want to work with that hop again. Yeah,
• 1:21:42
  but the hop may have been great. It just may
• 1:21:44
  have not been harvested on the right date. Exactly.
• 1:21:46
  That's one example, right? Yeah, there's a few
• 1:21:49
  of those around out there where once that hop
• 1:21:52
  has a bad reputation, it's hard to recover from
• 1:21:55
  that. And so if you don't have it launched with
• 1:21:57
  a clear set of standards and quality control
• 1:22:00
  and someone to actually manage that at the same
• 1:22:02
  time, then you're going to run into problems
• 1:22:03
  downstream. Yeah, no, I totally agree on that.
• 1:22:07
  And that's one of the... changes that we've made
• 1:22:09
  to latitude 46 in the last year is you know basically
• 1:22:12
  all product comes in to latitude 46 you know
• 1:22:16
  virtually or or physically and then goes through
• 1:22:21
  qc and you know and there's a whole distribution
• 1:22:24
  strategy around it and everything but yeah no
• 1:22:27
  agree that we do want to manage those things
• 1:22:29
  because when you have a brand and you're trying
• 1:22:33
  to drive adoption and All that stuff needs to
• 1:22:38
  be paid close attention to. Oh yeah. I think
• 1:22:41
  it's the biggest, the biggest challenge to the
• 1:22:45
  public breeding program is the lack of quality
• 1:22:48
  control over the, even over the volume control.
• 1:22:53
  So when somebody picks, you know, cashmere, it
• 1:22:56
  needs to pick over like three days, which is
• 1:22:58
  crazy because I always, as a general rule of
• 1:23:01
  thumb say that I think hops. you know the prime
• 1:23:07
  picking window for a hop variety to be i guess
• 1:23:11
  reflective of its core characteristics is like
• 1:23:14
  seven to ten days something like that you know
• 1:23:17
  i've always used that as a general rule of thumb
• 1:23:18
  so like yeah and cashmere is like three yeah
• 1:23:21
  and so what happens when uh somebody picks that
• 1:23:25
  outside of that window and it gets into the market
• 1:23:27
  then brewers walk away from cashmere and so the
• 1:23:30
  negative impact that that decision has it doesn't
• 1:23:35
  just impact that grower that brewer it impacts
• 1:23:38
  everybody growing that variety and i've never
• 1:23:42
  understood why the public breeding program doesn't
• 1:23:44
  at least either contract out brand management
• 1:23:48
  or run their own brand management and just charge
• 1:23:53
  a small you know 20 cent a pound royalty or whatever
• 1:23:55
  that pays for making sure the hops are harvested
• 1:24:00
  correctly they are true to type that the roots
• 1:24:03
  move the way they should to you know They aren't
• 1:24:06
  allowed to do that. It's expressly forbidden
• 1:24:10
  in their, I don't know what you call it, charter
• 1:24:13
  mission statement or something like that. Oh,
• 1:24:15
  interesting. Yeah, so they can't have royalties
• 1:24:18
  or no profit. There can't be any type of royalty
• 1:24:22
  or anything associated with it, at least with
• 1:24:24
  the USDA release. Now, if it comes out of Oregon
• 1:24:27
  State. like Strata, for example, was bred with
• 1:24:31
  an Oregon State University hop breeder in conjunction
• 1:24:34
  with Indy Hop. There is a royalty associated
• 1:24:36
  with that, and that's managed by the university,
• 1:24:38
  but the USDA cannot have any type of profit or
• 1:24:42
  royalty structure associated with any of their
• 1:24:46
  hops. And so that almost does work to their detriment
• 1:24:48
  in some ways, but it's just the nature of the
• 1:24:51
  program. So how come they can't, like... So the
• 1:24:55
  only way that that would work is if an entity
• 1:24:57
  like the Brewers Association or the Washington
• 1:24:59
  Hop Commission took the public variety at that
• 1:25:02
  point and then became the marketing arm or the
• 1:25:05
  quality control. Yeah, yeah. That's what I would.
• 1:25:06
  Because they do that on Tree Fruit. Yeah. Where
• 1:25:09
  they'll offer up the variety and they'll do an
• 1:25:12
  RFQ for who wants to manage this variety. Yeah.
• 1:25:16
  I'm not sure if at that point it could have a
• 1:25:19
  royalty added to it. I do not think that it could.
• 1:25:23
  That's just that's something that I think that
• 1:25:24
  would benefit the industry. I know that there's
• 1:25:26
  been, you know, some attempts at that. Hop Research
• 1:25:29
  Council is definitely trying to do that with
• 1:25:31
  getting brewers involved and promoting it. But
• 1:25:34
  we've just yeah, we're behind as an industry
• 1:25:36
  as far as that goes for promoting the public
• 1:25:38
  program. But, you know, again, the people that
• 1:25:40
  are, you know, would have the job of promoting
• 1:25:42
  it also tend to have their own breeding programs
• 1:25:45
  as well. So so it's just, you know, our industry
• 1:25:47
  is small and there's competing interests. And,
• 1:25:49
  you know, it is something that I think is needed,
• 1:25:52
  but I'm not. sure that that'll happen to continue
• 1:25:55
  on that subject you know what is something that
• 1:25:58
  you feel um we could improve on as a breeding
• 1:26:03
  industry or as a hop industry right like you
• 1:26:07
  know we've talked about different things agronomics
• 1:26:09
  marketing you know when you look out into the
• 1:26:13
  future how do you think we could improve either
• 1:26:16
  latitude 46 or as an industry well i mean it's
• 1:26:21
  gonna you know, sound kind of boring and maybe
• 1:26:23
  like contradictory to some of the other philosophies
• 1:26:26
  in this room. But I think that we really do need
• 1:26:29
  to play the long game. I mean, the industry is
• 1:26:32
  very, you know, volatile and reactive. You know,
• 1:26:35
  there's, you know, a hop pops off, you know,
• 1:26:39
  the immediate reaction is to plant it, you know,
• 1:26:42
  blow it up completely, plant it on a lot of different
• 1:26:44
  acres and, you know, multi acres. And it kind
• 1:26:48
  of oversaturates the market kind of early on.
• 1:26:52
  Um, and I think one of my, my personal, uh, opinions
• 1:26:57
  of, uh, you know, for the overall health of hops
• 1:26:59
  in the long run is, you know, this idea of, uh,
• 1:27:02
  that we've done historically of first year cropping
• 1:27:05
  when, you know, we plant, you know, and, and
• 1:27:07
  harvest in the same season instead of just, you
• 1:27:10
  know, letting the hops kind of, you know, sit
• 1:27:11
  for a year and, and grow and become healthy.
• 1:27:14
  Um, I think that that is having impacts in long
• 1:27:17
  -term yield stability, uh, because when you know,
• 1:27:20
  you harvest something that, you know, again,
• 1:27:22
  is only like, you know, a few feet tall, doesn't
• 1:27:23
  really have, hasn't really had a chance to build
• 1:27:25
  that root mass yet. You're kind of stripping
• 1:27:27
  away those carbohydrate reserves and, you know,
• 1:27:30
  the metabolics that are going to help that. hop
• 1:27:33
  be successful for the long term. Now, maybe that's
• 1:27:36
  not an issue now, because we do tend to change
• 1:27:38
  out yards a lot faster than we did historically.
• 1:27:40
  Like it used to be, you know, you'd have hop
• 1:27:41
  yards in for 20 to 50 years. But now I think
• 1:27:43
  the average life of a hop yard is only five to
• 1:27:46
  seven years. So in that sense, like, you know,
• 1:27:48
  the fast turnaround time, you know, does make
• 1:27:50
  sense. But just for the overall picture and health
• 1:27:53
  of a hop plant, you know, a little bit of patience
• 1:27:57
  and playing the long game, I think is something
• 1:27:59
  that, you know. long -term in the industry, like
• 1:28:03
  the season, season hop growers that have been
• 1:28:05
  around for a long time would probably, you know,
• 1:28:07
  agree, you know, to a certain extent on that
• 1:28:09
  too, but you also, you know, have to be able
• 1:28:11
  to react to the market. So it's, it's, um, yeah,
• 1:28:14
  I guess I don't have a real, real clear answer,
• 1:28:15
  but that's, um, So playing the long game in terms
• 1:28:20
  of breeding selection and release or playing
• 1:28:22
  the long game in terms of varietal management
• 1:28:25
  in the field, I heard you kind of reference both.
• 1:28:27
  Yeah. I'd say varietal management in the field
• 1:28:29
  and, and breeding. Breeding is always a long
• 1:28:32
  game. We don't breed like annuals. It's usually
• 1:28:36
  an average of 10 years from seed to release,
• 1:28:40
  10 to 15 longer in a lot of cases, too. Breeding
• 1:28:43
  for the long term, we get a lot of really interesting
• 1:28:46
  varieties that just aren't necessarily fit for
• 1:28:49
  the environment, the brewing environment nowadays.
• 1:28:52
  That doesn't mean that we're going to... discard
• 1:28:55
  them if they've got good agronomics. So we want
• 1:28:58
  to select things that are going to be stable,
• 1:28:59
  robust, and last a long time, even if the aroma
• 1:29:03
  profile or other elements about it aren't accepted.
• 1:29:07
  by the industry at this point. It doesn't mean
• 1:29:09
  they won't be later on down the line. But we
• 1:29:12
  have to know that labor is going to become more
• 1:29:14
  expensive. We've got a lot of pests and diseases
• 1:29:16
  on the horizon that haven't even entered our
• 1:29:18
  industry yet that are in other industries. So
• 1:29:21
  we're going to be facing a lot of challenges,
• 1:29:22
  drought, water restrictions. We have to find
• 1:29:25
  a way to farm sustainably with lower inputs,
• 1:29:28
  but still have it be economical. So we want high
• 1:29:31
  yield, low input, and stable. And that's another
• 1:29:35
  thing, too, like varietal stability. Your aroma
• 1:29:38
  profile can be influenced by certain climactic
• 1:29:40
  conditions and things like that. So a hop that's
• 1:29:42
  able to sail through that, have consistent aroma,
• 1:29:45
  consistent yield, and not require a lot of inputs
• 1:29:48
  on the front end is what we're chasing. And to
• 1:29:53
  a certain extent, we're already there, but we're
• 1:29:54
  always, that's the marathon. That's what we,
• 1:29:56
  the marathon that never ends. We're constantly
• 1:29:58
  developing with that in mind. Love it. I do think
• 1:30:02
  this is kind of following the, or this is on
• 1:30:08
  the same trajectory as a lot of our conversations.
• 1:30:10
  I think it definitely warrants a follow -up.
• 1:30:12
  And when I was discussing our breeding program
• 1:30:16
  and upcoming topics with a brewer the other day,
• 1:30:19
  they had a good suggestion that I think would
• 1:30:21
  be fun for us to talk about in the future. And
• 1:30:25
  that's kind of like a varietal origins deep dive.
• 1:30:30
  That would be fun. Yep. And I think we may need
• 1:30:33
  to bring Les Roy back specifically for the CTZ
• 1:30:36
  origin story. We could probably have a whole
• 1:30:39
  episode on that one. I think you could. Yeah.
• 1:30:42
  Because some of these varieties are, well, I
• 1:30:46
  mean, a lot of the varieties have interesting
• 1:30:47
  origin stories. You know, it's not just like,
• 1:30:50
  oh, we ran through our breeding program and here
• 1:30:53
  it is, you know. No, I think a CTZ episode would
• 1:30:57
  be great. CTZ episode would be great. Yeah. So
• 1:31:00
  I think that's something that we're going to
• 1:31:02
  try and circle back up on for the viewers. Yeah,
• 1:31:07
  it's kind of like a varietal origin story. Could
• 1:31:10
  spark some interesting debate, but it would be
• 1:31:16
  fun. Definitely. Yeah. Megan Toomey, thanks for
• 1:31:20
  coming on the show today. Thanks a lot. Thanks,
• 1:31:22
  guys.