OXFORD - It's an odd sight to stumble across while passing through the usual rows of corn and beans found down a country road in Iowa.

About 40 poles, each standing 20 feet tall and webbed together by twine and vines snaking up from the soil, line a field just north of Kent Park in rural Johnson County.

It's enough to bring traffic, or what counts as traffic out here, to a halt.

"When we first set up the poles, we'd see people stopping and looking and saying, 'What is going on?'" said Seth Somerville, who with his parents, Kevin and Mary Somerville, own a small farm called Green Castle Organics.

Seth Somerville and his family planted the poles along with about 500 rootstalks last year with the idea of growing hops, the ingredient that gives beer its characteristic flavor.

Somerville, 25, says he is one of the few, if not the only, Iowa farmer attempting to commercially raise hops, which are rarely found outside the Pacific Northwest.

Hops, the small cone-shaped flowers that grow on vines, are raised almost exclusively in the U.S. in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, where the abundant irrigation and moderate temperatures allow them to thrive. Hops growers in Iowa, however, with the exception of a handful of home-brewing hobbyists, are non-existent, Somerville said.

"We're doing a lot of the stuff using self-research," Somerville said.

His father, Kevin, calls it "learning by trial and error."

The idea to grow hops took root when Seth Somerville was working in customer service at Millstream Brewery in Amana. A worldwide shortage of hops hit during the winter of 2007-08, caused in part by a poor European crop, which sent Millstream scrambling to find new hops distributors.

It also got Somerville thinking.

"I started by calling the USDA in Oregon and Oregon State University," Somerville said. "I wanted to find out if they had any opinion on if it would be feasible to even grow hops in Iowa."

About five years ago, the Somerville family inherited land from neighbor Luke Shupitar after he died. The Somervilles, who had raised a small number of hogs and a few acres of corn on their original property as a hobby, had to decide what to do with the newly acquired acreage. The soil was poor, however, so they had to get creative.

"We couldn't do corn or soybeans, so we were looking for alternative ways to utilize the land," Kevin Somerville said.

After converting much of the land to natural habitat through the Conservation Reserve Program, the Somervilles worked to create a certified organic farm, meaning no chemicals were used on the soil and crops for at least three years. Since then they've begun farming potatoes, carrots and beets - root crops that do well in a sandy loam soil. This fall, Kevin plans to plant garlic.

While still in the early stages of growing their farm, the Somervilles sell some of their produce to the New Pioneer Co-op in Iowa City and through a Kalona-based distributor.

It's the hops and their potential, though, that have Seth Somerville the most excited.

After making the calls to the hops growers out West last year, he was encouraged. The experts told him that, in theory, there should be a few varieties of hops that could take hold in Iowa. After ordering the rhizomes, or rootstalks, then erecting the poles and spending weeks readying the land, the Somervilles hand-planted about 20 varieties of hops in the spring of 2008.

When the first plants sprouted, it was a relief, Seth Somerville said.

"I was definitely nervous until I saw the first one come up, then in a matter of a week you could see, throughout the field, them all coming up," he said.

Ann George, administrator of the Hops Growers of America in Moxee, Wash., said that she received many inquiries from smaller growers outside of the Northwest after the 2007 shortage, and that several small farmers, like the Somervilles, have begun trying their hand at hops in recent years.

Since then, however, George said the market has corrected itself and a big 2009 U.S. harvest means there is an ample supply this year. Small growers now are faced with competing with the fourth- and fifth-generation, multi-million dollar operations in the Northwest with an abundant crop.

"The biggest issue is the market," George said. "With hop growing there are a number of ways to gauge success. Can you grow them successfully? Yeah, pretty much, because hops are a pretty aggressive plant and you can just about grow them anywhere.

"But will that result in a commercially viable yield? That's the next question."

George said that unless a small hops grower can find a local microbrewery to sell to, it can be hard to break into what has once again turned into a competitive market for growers.

"We're swimming in hops again," George said. "And that makes it a tough situation for growers outside of the traditional commercial area."

Seth Somerville said that thus far, only about three of the 20 hops varieties he planted have taken off in the Iowa soil. They harvested about 15 pounds of hops in the first year, which he sold to Millstream, and about 30 pounds this fall. With the perennial vines still young and the family experimenting to find what works best, Somerville hopes to ramp up production in the coming years and add dozens more poles and vines.

"It's a long-term investment," he said.

Somerville said that the going rate for hops these days is about $3 an ounce or $20 a pound, but since his product is organic, he is able to charge about $5 an ounce. He is selling this year's crop to home-brewing clubs around the area and is looking forward to receiving feedback about the flavors his hops add to their beer.

A few brewers are even bringing batches of beer by the farm for taste-testing, which is the fun part, Somerville says.

Encouraged by his first two seasons of growing the crop, Somerville hopes it's the start of a long-term endeavor for the farm.

"We're just stewards of the land," Somerville said. "We don't own it forever, but we need to take as good of care of it as we can."

By Josh O'Leary, Iowa City Press-Citizen

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Information from: Iowa City Press-Citizen, http://www.press-citizen.com/