MAINEVILLE, Ohio — Dave Volkman was attending a wedding in Germany five years ago when he stumbled upon hops being grown in a field. The thought occurred to try the crop back home in Warren County, Ohio, and he wondered if he could incorporate it into his 12-acre Maineville farm.

“It just clicked for me that hops might be that additional crop,” he said.

Nearly 43,000 acres of hops are grown in Germany annually. It grew 41 percent of the world’s nearly 116 million pounds of hops last year, while the United States (primarily in Washington) grew 34 percent.

Volkman was among the first Ohio growers to jump at the chance of growing hops at a time when craft brewing was on the rise. He planted his first hops in 2011 and received guidance from Ohio State University extension horticulturalist Brad Bergefurd, who was growing and experimenting with hops in Pike and Wayne counties.

Volkman tends to eight varieties and more than 400 plants on his hop yard in Maineville. He has plans of doubling that over the next few years to provide a locally grown, fresh, quality product to home and craft brewers in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky.

“They’re rather expensive to get started, but once you have the infrastructure in place, the plants last 10, 15, 20 years,” he said.

Hops plants grow upwards of 18 feet, so a trellis system will need to be at least that tall and consist of a grid of poles, cables and a drip irrigation system. Although the price can fluctuate depending on someone’s secondhand supply scrounging prowess, Volkman said a one-acre system, including rhizomes, costs between $8,000-$10,000.

“The plants typically take three years to mature, and it takes two or three years of growing at full speed for that initial investment to be paid off,” he said. “But after that, upkeep costs are minimal.

“Of course, that all depends on how big the operation will be. At first, people were just dipping their toes in, but now they’ve been growing a few years and some also are growing their investments. Five have invested in a mobile hops harvester, listed online for $13,500, and four have invested in a hops pelletizer, which costs about $15,000.

“I’ll always be in the research stage. To be effective at anything you have to stay up on the current research coming from other growers,” he added.

Research, Volkman says, is important. So too is trial and error. “A lot of it is practicality of not only paying attention to the academic research involved but learning from one’s own lessons, working with our soils, our grounds, our water and our bugs,” he said. “So much of it is about microclimates.

“When it comes to hops we have no real problems other than insects. We have three or four insects that can devastate us. The worst may be the two-spotted red spider mite. It is so tiny it can hardly be seen by the naked eye, but they can multiply rapidly and suck the juice out of a hops plant. These mites also love soybeans, so they can hop from a soybean field to a hops field quickly.”

Aphids, potato leaf hoppers and Japanese beetles are fond of hops, though Volkman said this past year wasn’t so bad from those predators.

“When starting out with hops I suggest one starts out small,” he advised. “Because it’s a different crop we need to do our homework first, rather than put in five acres immediately and get overwhelmed. When working with any crop you need to start out small and expand slowly. You have to grow your market and grow your capabilities.”

Volkman said novices should start out small. “You need to talk to people who are one to three years ahead of you, because that first year is a humdinger. It’s not for everyone. You learn from your mistakes and you learn from your successes.”

Ohio hops growers are on their way to meeting demand. Last year was the first time since Prohibition the state reported hops production, with 100 acres planted and 30 acres harvested. In February, Bergefurd said, about 500 people attended the second Hops Growers Conference in Wooster. “There’s a lot of interest there, especially with the downturn (of prices) in the grain industry,” he said.

While yields per acre vary, Hop Growers of America reported the average across Oregon, Idaho and Washington in 2014 was 1,868 pounds. At an average price of $3.83 per pound – nearly twice the price of a decade ago – each acre of hops can bring in more than $7,000.

“We want an Ohio variety that’s a little different and grows well here and sets Ohio apart,” Volkman said, adding a few growers with horticulture backgrounds have begun experimenting. “Here in Ohio we’re making progress, but we have a long way to go.”