Date of Submission

Spring 2024

Academic Program

Biology

Project Advisor 1

Michael Tibbetts

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Hops are a perennial plant that are used in brewing to alter the bitterness and aromatics in beer. In the 1880s-90s hops were grown as a cash crop in the Hudson Valley until the crops failed in the early 1900s. These hops were allowed to grow wildly and reproduce with each other leading to the “feral” or heritage hops that grow in the Hudson Valley today. The lineage of wild hops is important to know because it can determine the value of these plants to local farmers and brewers. Past research has shown that the origins of feral hops can be determined through genetic analysis. There are many places in the country where wild hops grow, but their lineage has not been studied. The lineage of heritage hops in the Hudson Valley have not yet been traced. Accordingly, this study proposes to determine the relationship of the heritage hops of the Hudson Valley. Using methods from a previous study, one non-coding region of the chloroplast (petL) and one of nuclear ribosomal (ITS2) DNA were sequenced and then analyzed to find the differences between each regional hop. A phylogenetic tree was built using the petL region of the chloroplast. This tree related two regional hops to the same common ancestor. This study can assist regional brewers in the knowledge of where historical strains of hops are found.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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