[Beer tap at Von Ebert Brewery]
[Jim Solberg at Von Ebert Brewery]
Jim Solberg (interview): “As developers of new hop varieties at Indie Hops there are a number of things we’re thinking about, and there is a very long-term component to it where In any agricultural crop, you’re having to stay ahead of pests, diseases and more recently we’ve had issues of climate change thrown at agriculture as well. Be it varying temperatures at different times of the year, different levels of rainfall at different times of the year. Sometimes too much, sometimes too little.”
[Hop pellets being poured from a bucket]
[Hop pellets]
Jim Solberg (interview): “Hop breeding is one of the best ways to deal with that. To find genotypes that not only brew well for the brewing of the beer, but stand up better to less access to water, to maybe warmer winters where the winter chill, the overwintering element isn’t there as easily for some varieties. Some deal with that better than others. That’s one thing we’re looking at is having a stable set of hop varieties to grow in the challenging face of climate change.”
[Equipment in brewing room]
[Brewer checking equipment]
[Control panel]
[Steam rising out of brewing equipment]
[Tractor in field at Goschie Farms]
[Workers loading winter barley seed into seeder]
Gayle Goschie (interview): “For me the benefits of growing winter barley is, in my mind, is sort of a bridge of climate change. Going from not understanding what that means, to understanding that we need to be thinking about the future and what our weather and what our temperatures and what the amount of water that we have to do any supplemental irrigation is going to be.”
[Winter barley seed being poured into farm equipment for planting]
[Tractor planting barley seed]
[Gayle Goschie and farmworker before planting]
Gayle Goschie (interview): “It’s been challenging in some ways, just because it’s a new crop for us. But there’s a lot of success that we’ve seen, and the customers that have been excited about it. And again, the ability to have a crop that really requires very little tillage of the soil, so we’re keeping that beautiful soil in place.”
[Seeder in field for planting]
Gayle Goschie (interview): “It’s been interesting to just think about the evolution of climate change as a farmer.”
[Seeder in field]
[Grasses near field and field in background]
Gayle Goschie (interview): “We were certainly looking at it from the research side, for all of agriculture. Looking to see with crops about drought tolerance. What did we have that we were growing. What did we need to be able to maybe make changes to be able to prepare for what was coming. And then all of a sudden, it was not coming any longer, it was here.”
[Gayle Goschie looking out over field]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.