Anheuser-Busch’s Elk Mountain Farms, located near Bonners Ferry, is renowned for its size – with 1,700 acres under trellis, it’s the world’s largest contiguous hops farm.<p>Elk Mountain’s operators are beginning the second year of working with researchers from University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences to earn a new distinction – as trailblazers in innovative, sustainable production practices.<p>Last summer, Elk Mountain tested U of I’s patented technology to treat shallow groundwater beneath their property and recover phosphorus.<p>In the environment, phosphorus within a watershed may leach into surface waters and can contribute to algal blooms that deplete waterbodies of dissolved oxygen.<p>Researchers used iron and biochar in a flow-through filter to treat the groundwater. The recovered nutrient-enriched biochar is being tested as a soils amendment to nourish and fertilize hops plants on the farm. <p>“There’s a
Anheuser-Busch’s Elk Mountain Farms, located near Bonners Ferry, is renowned for its size – with 1,700 acres under trellis, it’s the world’s largest contiguous hops farm.<p>Elk Mountain’s operators are beginning the second year of working with researchers from University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences to earn a new distinction – as trailblazers in innovative, sustainable production practices.<p>Last summer, Elk Mountain tested U of I’s patented technology to treat shallow groundwater beneath their property and recover phosphorus.<p>In the environment, phosphorus within a watershed may leach into surface waters and can contribute to algal blooms that deplete waterbodies of dissolved oxygen.<p>Researchers used iron and biochar in a flow-through filter to treat the groundwater. The recovered nutrient-enriched biochar is being tested as a soils amendment to nourish and fertilize hops plants on the farm. <p>“There’s a