# Propagating Hops With Cuttings



## ekul (8/10/10)

One of my chinooks got hit with the mower. Sadly it was my best plant but i decided to make lemonade and thought i'd give propagation a try.

Feeling lazy i didn't really want to bust out the perlite so i chopped two pieces from the bine and placed them in a glass of water. A week later and both cuttings have calluses on them, which means that they will soon send roots out. 100% strike rate is pretty sweet, but not unreasonable.

So to do it i grabed some 'hard' bits of bine. Then i chopped the piece into bits containing three 'nodes'. A node is where the leaves come out. Then i cut all the leaves off except the two top leaves. The two top leaves were trimmed to 50%. In the below drawing the red lines indicte where i chopped.
View attachment hops.bmp


I reckon you could probably get away with only using two nodes, this means that you'd be able to make more cuttings.

then i simply popped the cuttings into a glass of water and kept them in a spot that does not receive direct sunlight. It needs to be a well lit area, just can't be in full sun. I put mine above the sink.

Change the water every second day. This keeps the water fresh and oxygenated.

HANDY TIPS

Use clean utensils when cutting the bines, you don't want them to get infected.

When you do the bottom cut on the bottom node, make it as close to the node as possible and angled.

When you cut the bottom node, put it in water straight away. If you don't the cutting will suck up air causing an 'airlock', which will stop the cutting sucking up water, causing it to die.

Using rooting hormone and prop sand would give better results, but the water seems to work ok so far.




I will update as my cuttings get older.


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## ekul (9/10/10)

Update- Checked my cuttings this morning and one of them has 3 roots on it. One of the roots is 1cm long! Which is alot considering there wasn't any roots last night at 9pm. I'm going to prop as many as these as i can.


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## Bribie G (9/10/10)

That will be great if they grow successfully. You can get rooting powder from nurseries as well.
You may just have discovered the hop version of slants :icon_cheers:


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## Nick JD (9/10/10)

BribieG said:


> That will be great if they grow successfully. You can get rooting powder from nurseries as well.
> You may just have discovered the hop version of slants :icon_cheers:



Next project: grafting another member of the _Cannabaceae _onto your hop vine...


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## felten (9/10/10)

They're graftable apparently, but the resins don't cross over.


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## Nick JD (9/10/10)

felten said:


> They're graftable apparently, but the resins don't cross over.



Hops as the root stock! :icon_cheers: Active ingredients are synthesised in the "flower".


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## ekul (10/10/10)

Now the other one has roots too, so its def going to work. Using this easy method every homebrewer in australia should have a hops plant growing in their backyard!


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## Nick JD (10/10/10)

ekul said:


> Now the other one has roots too, so its def going to work. Using this easy method every homebrewer in australia should have a hops plant growing in their backyard!



Nice work!

I've got some powdered hormone stuff (from Bunnings) so I'll try that method and report back. Sounds like it'll work a treat if they root without it.


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## jyo (10/10/10)

Nick JD said:


> Nice work!
> 
> I've got some powdered hormone stuff (from Bunnings) so I'll try that method and report back. Sounds like it'll work a treat if they root without it.



A mate of mine in Perth has been using this exact method with great success for a couple of seasons now. He keeps them humid while the roots are developing (like normal cuttings) under some glad wrap.
Cheers, John.


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## Spoonta (13/10/10)

ya it works a treat I use seed rasing mix in the pots


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## ekul (13/10/10)

Mine have roots about 3cm long now, will be putting them in the greenhouse tmo. Very happy this worked.


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## rendo (13/10/10)

<immature mode ON>

Rooting powder!! hahaha. 

U can also get rooting powder from the chemist....comes in a blue pill (so I am told)....viagra?

Here baby...let me sprinkle my rooting powder on you....

<immature mode OFF>no...<immature mode ON>...<immature mode OFF>....<immature mode ON>






BribieG said:


> You can get rooting powder from nurseries as well.


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## rendo (13/10/10)

post a pic ekul....

ps...top post, great idea, thanks for sharing...

rendo



ekul said:


> Mine have roots about 3cm long now, will be putting them in the greenhouse tmo. Very happy this worked.


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## MarkBastard (13/10/10)

Can you do this at the end of the season while you have about a million lengths of hop bine that you're going to chuck out anyway?

And if so I guess you'd have to grow them over the winter some how ready for the next season?


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## ekul (13/10/10)

Mark bastard -If you interrupted the night cycle i'm sure you could. I have a friend doing a masters in this (not hops, but something similar) atm and the light required to break the night cycle is very small and doesn't have to be on for very long. A fluoro would be perfect.

The reason you want to interrupt the night cycle is so that the plant reverts from flowering (and dying) mode to vegetative growth mode. If its winter and you try to make cuttings the hop will probably put all its energy into making flowers, rather than sending out roots. The hop decides if its winter or not by measuring the length of uniterrupted darkness it gets. If the darkness is interrupted for 5mins in the night the hop will think its summer and start veg growth.

I'm not sure how old the cutting would have to be to have a rhizome, but i will know soon enough.

Rendo- my camera is broken but if i remember i'll grab amates and post a pic. Doesn't really look like anything, just a piece of vine with some roots at the bottom.


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## Spoonta (13/10/10)

my tip cutting add a rizome about the size of a golf ball after one growing session


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## Mitternacht Brauer (14/10/10)

Hi Guys,

This is what I did last year. 
I took a spare bine and bent it over so it grew through the top of a pot and out the other side. Where the bine passed over the center of the pot I scraped some of the shaft and applied the rooting hormone and covered in potting mix. I had three pots hanging off one bine .I did this early in the season which allowed the bine to continue to grow. Each time the bine grew so there was room for another pot ,same thing.

I found that this year these plants have kicked on better than the cuttings that I had been making for some years earlier. 

Just the way I have been doing it.

MB


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## matho (14/10/10)

i have had good results with taking cuttings using this (under the heading propergating rhizomes by cuttings) method that i posted in the hop article.

the best rooting hormone to use is the gel stuff i have tried the powder and hasnt worked very well.

i take the cuttings about the end of october and after the growing season i get a root ball that looks like this.





thought i would add my 2C

cheers Matho


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## Spoonta (14/10/10)

Ekul so what your saying about the light is if you leave them under a flro at night thay would grow at the end of grow session


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## tallie (2/10/12)

Is this still the best practice for propagating hops using cuttings? Are there any improvements on the process or other suggestions based on experience?

Cheers,
tallie


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## Malted (2/10/12)

Once you get laterals growing from your bines these are perfect for taking cuttings, IMO.
I have used both thick, woody main bines and growing tips from laterals etc. I had a better success rate with the growing tips.
Dipping them in hormone rooting powder before placing in the glass seemed to produce a greater quantity of roots than without the hormone powder.
I tried planting straight into potting mix etc and placing them in a glass of water. I had better success with the glass of water and once the roots are of a reasonable size, then plant them out.
Funnily enough, the cuttings in small pots stayed green well after the mature plants in the garden had browned off and dropped their leaves. 

YRMV etc etc.


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## tallie (2/10/12)

Thanks for the reply, Malted. I'm now reconsidering my original plans of chopping up one of my first sprouting bines, which is only about 1.2m high. Decisions, decisions 

Cheers,
tallie


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## Malted (2/10/12)

tallie said:


> Thanks for the reply, Malted. I'm now reconsidering my original plans of chopping up one of my first sprouting bines, which is only about 1.2m high. Decisions, decisions
> 
> Cheers,
> tallie



Ekul gave good advice. 
It may depend on what you have to work with and why you are doing it. Why the rush? 

If left in the ground you will probably be able to pull up heaps of horizontal roots with nodes on them (i.e. rhizomes) to chop into sections (i.e. rhizomes) next winter.
If you have a heap of bines comming up then it probably would be ok to chop up the new bines now (some of my rhizomes are shooting 50+ new bines so they wouldn't miss a few). Later in the season if the growing tips are snapped off (or cut for cuttings) they will grow heaps of compensatory lateral bines. I could not tell you if it is ok to chop them now or later. 
I'd generalise and say if it is a newly planted rhizome then wait for some laterals to trim off, if it is a 2nd year or later rhizome (assuming planted in the ground, a pot based rhizome may be different) then it 'may' be ok to cut the growing tips now (if there are plenty to choose from). 
Generally speaking, plants cultivated and planted this year won't give big plants this year. You could make a plant this year to give a reasonable sized rhizome this year, for a big plant next year. It is easier to let it do it's thing and dig up, chop bits off the horizontal roots (i.e. new rhizomes) next winter. 
Don't be in a rush, they grow like all beggary given good growing conditions.


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## tallie (2/10/12)

It's a second year plant from a pot, which I've already chopped the rhizome and split into two pots. I'm planning to give the new plants from cuttings away to other brewers, so I suppose the timing factor is getting them established to have a good chance of getting something decent for next season. And yes, there are plenty more shoots springing through the soil. I'm swaying towards my original plan and using it as a learning experience either way. I'm not going to touch the second plant, so if it goes anything like last season, I'll have more than enough for personal consumption 

Cheers,
tallie


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