Today I want to continue on the topic of some of the
Kickstarter projects I have supported – this time, I’m writing about John
Condzella’s hop farm on Long Island – there’s a link at the end of the post.
Condzella says he saw the rise of craft brews and the need
for hops as an opportunity, and committed part of the family farm to growing
them. He’s been growing hops for two
years now.
His research showed that New York provided 80 percent of the
nation’s hop crop in the 1890’s. He
described the process that was used back then, with families traveling out to
help with the harvest – a process that reminded me of the cranberry harvests on
Cape Cod when I learned more about it.
I’ve watched my neighbor Dan with his annual hop growing and
harvest process over the last couple of years, and know that even on a small
scale, it’s a tedious process. Condzella
has acres committed to the crop, and those difficulties only increased with
scale. That led him to research machines
that could automate the process.
He found a used Wolf machine (check out how it works on the
video linked below) for sale in Germany and formed a Kickstarter project to buy
it – raising about $30,000 when all was said and done.
I can’t wait to read more details on when the machine gets
to the farm, and how it impacts the Condzella operation.
Kickstarter link to the project:
Here's a link to a company that makes hop harvesters:
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