The heat and drought have damaged the hops in the Elbe-Saale growing region. “We will certainly have a below-average harvest,” said Andreas Kunze, managing director of the Elbe-Saale Hop Growers’ Association. In his view, this affects not only the association’s growing region in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia, but all of Germany.
Due to the hot and dry conditions, the plants’ cones remained too small. At the same time, there were still night frosts in May, which is bad for the hops. According to Kunze, budbreak took a very long time this spring. For late-maturing hop varieties, such as the one called Herkules, Kunze is hoping for plenty of rain in the coming weeks, which could help boost the yield.
