Heat, parched soils and significantly smaller hop cones: for many hop farmers in Austria this year’s harvest is proving sobering. The Mühlviertel, one of the country’s most important hop-growing regions, is particularly hard hit.

“The heat and the drought have taken a heavy toll on us. Some of my plants are completely ruined,” says Stefan Hofer, chair of the Mühlviertel hop growers’ co-operative, speaking to ORF.

Even the plants that survived the dry spell have not developed as well, he says.

“The others simply haven’t been able to form cones in the same way. Everything is about half the size of a normal year.”

But the problem does not stop at…

Read the full article at EURONEWS.COM