# Looking for male hop rhizomes - anyone?



## philistine (27/1/15)

Hey Guys,

I'm keen to try my hand at a bit of hop breeding - does anyone know how/where I can get some hop "studs" ?

Cheers!


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## blotto (28/1/15)

Can't help you mate sorry, I'm just hoping your not in Perth North of the river


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## hoppy2B (28/1/15)

Hi Philistine,

I'm pretty sure I saw them advertised on Ebay the year I started growing hops, which was 2011. I haven't seen male hop rhizomes advertised since, I don't think.

I suggest you buy hop seeds on Ebay and raise them to get a male. I am probably going to do the same thing. I have seen plenty of hop seeds on Ebay, and you can get them from inside Australia, so there is no stress about customs or the like.


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## Judanero (28/1/15)

I admire your commitment.

Cross breeding is an extremely in depth and time consuming endeavour... Isolating desired traits from either parent (typically involving at least dozens-more like hundreds of offspring/samples, growing them and selecting plants that exhibit the desired traits/characteristics and then stabilising the desired trait by re breeding with the parent of said trait) will take multiple generations.

Going into this you would also need to have a pretty clear idea of what you're trying to create and the necessary composition from both parents ie- aroma, flavour, disease resistance, and then more in depth like alpha/beta composition. You'd have to know this for both strains you intended on crossing, and preferably know of their individual parent history/lineage/origin as well.

It isn't as straight forward as fertilising some flowers and the offspring are a mix of both parents, if it were there would be multiple strains created every year. 

Not trying to rain on your parade, if you already know all this then carry on and god speed.. keep us updated.


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## philistine (28/1/15)

Wort - dont stress dude, im in VIC 

Hoppy - cheers man, yeah i thought about getting seeds but so far havent been able to find any on the market that have their 'lineage' noted in the listing (although i havent looked that hard to be honest). 
Another option would be to wait until flowering time and try to get some male flowers or pollen samples. If posted quickly and handled carefully, pollen can remain viable for long enough to be useful. 

Judanero - yeah man, i understand that its not exactly 'commercially viable' and im not really interested in lab analysis either, but even at an amateur/hobby level, cross pollination can still produce noticably different variants within only a few generations of the parent material. When site conditions remain consistant (ie. You grow shit in the same place for a few seasons) Soil chemistry, polyploidy and microclimatic influences alone will leave their 'mark' on any organism. 
Even self pollinating, self sewn annual plants will adapt to their environment with each successive generation and become better suited for growing in that specific location.

I didnt wanna type all that shit for the sake of disagreeing with you - i just wanted to point out that even the average green-thumb joe/jane with a decent sized backyard can give it a shot and possibly even encourage people who may be dissuaded by 'agricultural economics'


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## blotto (28/1/15)

Oh yeah sorry mate I couldn't see your location on my phone, it's showing on my computer  It would have to be a strong wind to blow those bees over here! (If indeed it is bees that do the pollinating)


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## ekul (28/1/15)

spray silver thiosulphate on a female plant, it will make male flowers. http://www.google.com/patents/US20140196164 You could also try making a really strong colliodal silver solution and spray that on one of your females everyday. Then youll have to grow the seeds out and select the ones you want.


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## Judanero (28/1/15)

ekul said:


> spray silver thiosulphate on a female plant, it will make male flowers. http://www.google.com/patents/US20140196164 You could also try making a really strong colliodal silver solution and spray that on one of your females everyday. Then youll have to grow the seeds out and select the ones you want.


Have you used this ( either Ag2O3S2 or Colloidal ) with success? I was lead to believe that in the absence of male genes the resultant generation would produce "feminised" seeds I.e- only female seeds. 

Not really a big issue I guess, you could just force a hermaphrodite from the next generation and so on and so on until you were happy with the traits.

I had toyed with cross breeding previously but for aforementioned reasons gave up. Was discussing hybrids with a mate today (thanks to this thread) and he offered me a 3 acre patch (he's got a couple hundred acre block) to use as a hop yard, this may put it back on the table. h34r:


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## Pogierob (28/1/15)

Wort said:


> Can't help you mate sorry, I'm just hoping your not in Perth North of the river


I"m in that area and I know a few hop growers in and around those parts too, hopefully the bees stay the f#$% away from my plants if this ever comes to pass.

It would break my heart to care for them all summer to have them go to seed.


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## ekul (28/1/15)

Judanero, yes, i forgot to mention that all the seeds will be female. The female plant only has xx chromosomes so the seeds can only have xx chromosomes. 

I havent seen it done on hops but i have seen it done in hemp. The plants get real sickly and then turn male, i imagine the same will happen with hops as well. So dont worry if your plant starts looking a little shit


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## philistine (29/1/15)

Ekul - my understanding of STS treatment is very limited, but you just answered my question re: feminised seeds.
I was also wondering, given that hops is perennial vs. hemp which is annual, do you know if the effects of applying applying STS would be long term? Or do you think its safe to say that in consecutive seasons, the treated hops would revert back to feminised flowering?


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## hoppy2B (29/1/15)

The easiest method to employ, is simply to breed back to one variety. For example, one would start with any male plant and pollinate Cascade. The seeds are then raised and any male plant is selected and its pollen used to pollinate a Cascade. The seeds from that breeding are then raised and another male is selected and used to pollinate a Cascade, and so on and so forth.

Its not necessary to test your male pollen donor. The object of the breeding program outlined above is to create a male line with a high percentage of Cascade genes. If you wish, you may select a male with particular growth characteristics that you deem valuable or desirable, for instance early flowering or high vigour. This is how a male plant of a particular variety is created.

After 7 generations, there remains less than 1% foreign genetic material in your breeding line -

X1 : 50%
X2 : 25%
X3 : 12.5%
X4 : 6.25 %
X5 : 3.125%
X6 : 1.5625%
X7 : 0.78125%

One thing that may happen with this method is that the male line may lose some vigour and become dwarfed. (Cue Yob!) This isn't an issue as this would normally be the breeding method employed to create a male of one variety to cross with the female of another variety. Hybrid vigour would return when the male is outcrossed.

Of course, when an outcross is performed, one can breed back to the male plant for more than one generation, selecting female plants from each generation if desired. And even when producing a male, it may be possible to select a female plant from the stock produced, etc.


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## Yob (29/1/15)

ignored...

ed: dammit, not ignored..

You got some data to support all this Hoppy? Id love to read it.


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## Whiteferret (29/1/15)

One thing I've wondered is whether a hop seedling will produce in its first season or if you have to wait a few years until it is an adult to start flowering, like some fruits grown from seed.


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## Yob (29/1/15)

Depends.. Treated well they can do.


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## philistine (29/1/15)

I bought one of the 'beer herb' seedlings from bunnings, although theyre actually probably cuttings. Anyway, either way it cant have been more than a year old and i did get a few flowers on it that first year(2014). Last winter i dug it up and put a shovel thru the crown and split it into two - both halves are now flourishing in what's now their second season and im pretty sure im on the way to a decent crop this year!


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## Judanero (1/2/15)

Philistine, just had a thought so went back through my emails... email Andrew at: [email protected] he said previously he has some male rhizomes available (not until close to winter) but not sure what varieties.

This may be the "easiest" method to get a male for your endeavour.


:beer:


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## beerfarmer (3/2/15)

Went to deliver some hay to a neighbouring farm today, and you wouldn't believe what I found! Looks like I might be pollinating some girls this week. The hops gods were shining today. No idea what variety is but he looks the goods.


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