# whats wrong with my hops? ah nutrient deficiency!..nope its fkn mi



## Everest (1/11/15)

Hey guys

I thought Id post up my recent hop story
a little back ground first... i bought 2 cascade rhizomes last year and they grew well, one flowered real early and the other late.. an overall pretty good experiance

so i ordered a pride of ringwood, goldings, red earth and chinook for this year... potted them up and soon had some healthy growth...very healthy from the two existing cascades... then after a while the new hops slowed and stopped all toegther.. went a bit discolored and didnt show any particular one symptom that i could google with certainty

i had some helpfull hints that the discoloration was a nutrient deficiency and since i skimped a bit and got the cheap potting mix, got some decent organic liquid fertilizer... but a few weeks later they didnt get any better... well the cascades seemed to pop overnight

anyway i took off all the dead leaves and just put it down to they just didnt take... anyway there was one leaf left on the POR.. and i had a real close look at it.. (torch, glasses, kids magnifying glass and my camera zoomed in on it) and found fkn mites...
jesus they have to be less then half a mill across.. wish i had a closer look sooner...

anyway im off to bunnings to get "king jong un" strength pesticide tomorrow... hope this helped some one out there. i remember seeing a similar looking leaf not too long ago from some one elses post.

also underneath the leaf in that photo.. are the clear ball things mite eggs or part of the leaf?or are they young mites? you can see the adult mite on the right there..



top of the leaf


not sure what this dude is.. there were three on there


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## Danscraftbeer (1/11/15)

Gardening is self progressing . Like brewing, cooking etc. Progressing up the levels you encounter many little critters that you consider and condemn as villains and parasites! and then those predators that you will like as well. Organics is awesome.


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## wide eyed and legless (2/11/15)

They look like aphids with to me, with typical aphid damage to the leaves, have you got any ants running around them?Ants will feed off aphid secretion.

That other bug could be a predator, like a young lady bird larvae.

Even if you have a nutrient deficiency it has nothing to do with fertilizer, it is to do with pH, if your pH level is out of sorts then the plant roots can't take up nutrients, even in hydroponics where the nutrient are in the water if the water is the wrong pH the plant can not take up nutrients.

Just get some insect spray or wash them off with water but if you wash them of with water make sure you get all of them.

Agree with above statement, and there is more to learn about plants than there is about brewing.


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## coopsomulous (2/11/15)

Looks like young spider mites, before they start spinning the web or young aphids. I used to have a similar problem with my hops and I declared chemical warfare.

Pyrethrum Sprays work well at killing the buggers straight away, but they will be back in a week or two and can develop resistance.

I'm now using NEEM oil and that is awesome. Doesn't kill them straight away, but stops them eating, growing, reproducing.... Kills eggs, larvae, adults.

I have applied once this year as a pre strike on any dormant eggs and have no signs of them yet, where as previously there would be signs of them by this time. Apparently its organic, can be used on organic crops and food safe everywhere but Australia.

Neem Oil, that's all you need, don't worry about anything else.


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## kunfaced (2/11/15)

Soapy water sprayed onto the leaves sorts all of my problems out, except for those fking snails. Anyone have a solution for those suckers?


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## wide eyed and legless (2/11/15)

I was reading that you can buy copper tape but I don't know if I saw it on a UK gardening site or here, if it was on a UK site eBay UK would be the go, I believe it gives them a zap or something, anyhow they don't like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbDvhQMd-Dw


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## manticle (2/11/15)

kunfaced said:


> Soapy water sprayed onto the leaves sorts all of my problems out, except for those fking snails. Anyone have a solution for those suckers?



Pick 'em up and hurl them onto your neighbour's roof. Listen for the crack.


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## seamad (2/11/15)

manticle said:


> Pick 'em up and hurl them onto your neighbour's roof. Listen for the crack.


What if they're on tank water ? h34r:


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## Everest (2/11/15)

ah wow thanks for the replies...
i got the Pyrethrum Spray as applied that today... 


but ill def look into that neem oil for the next round...

cheers guys, all good advice there!


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## Ducatiboy stu (2/11/15)

kunfaced said:


> except for those fking snails. Anyone have a solution for those suckers?


Sharp small gravel or fine ash will stop them. They wont cross either

Anything powdery & dry will also stop them


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## Danwood (2/11/15)

wide eyed and legless said:


> I was reading that you can buy copper tape but I don't know if I saw it on a UK gardening site or here, if it was on a UK site eBay UK would be the go, I believe it gives them a zap or something, anyhow they don't like it.



My dad, back in the UK, said copper is good for slugs/snails last week (for my Marigolds, which they REALLY like).

Tried it with copper wire...no good, didn't even blink (I surrounded a slug with wire). So, it needs to be much wider...interesting.
Must feel like chewing tin foil !!


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## Danscraftbeer (2/11/15)

kunfaced said:


> Soapy water sprayed onto the leaves sorts all of my problems out, except for those fking snails. Anyone have a solution for those suckers?


I cant believe it hasn't been mentioned here. A bowl of beer! Slugs I get the most, and snails. They cant resist it so much they drown in it. They get the crap bottled stuff that I cant be bothered ditching. Vertical wall container best and make it easy for them to get into it. Bury level with the ground etc. You have to refresh the container. It turns to vinegar pretty quick and they don't go for it. They love fresh beer but they're not fussy. That copper tape does work too. They wont pass over it.


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## wide eyed and legless (3/11/15)

One thing wrong with the copper tape, it doesn't kill them, the beer traps will but the downfall of that is that it also traps the good doers in the garden as well. 
Haymes make a copper paint I would imagine that would work as I presume it has a high copper content, they use something similar in Germany where they paint the plastic guttering and down pipes with it, not to deter slugs a snails but to to make them look pretty when they turn that verdigris colour when weathered.


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## manticle (3/11/15)

seamad said:


> What if they're on tank water ? h34r:


I don't care what the snails are drinking.


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## Everest (8/11/15)

yeah so the mites are gone..... but this probably was my problem right from the start...... now to get it back up to 7... funnily enough my 2yo cascades that are growing better had the same ph level.. so its a wonder at all they took off at all too, though they were late bloomers...


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## Danscraftbeer (8/11/15)

Ha, Ive got that ph tester. I don't know how trustworthy it is but it doesn't read as low as that. Usually 6.5. Between 6 to 7 is optimum range that I understand. So don't over compensate either. I little lime in whatever your watering it with.


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## wide eyed and legless (9/11/15)

Agree with Danscraftbeer, I wouldn't be trusting that tester, being in Perth I would imagine your soil will be quite sandy, so if you are going to lime be aware that it will not stay there for long I would be waiting until the end of the season dig up the rhizome and put down plenty of compost and aged manure so you can be sure of plenty of nutrients being available and get a better pH test kit then test again.


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## Everest (9/11/15)

wide eyed and legless said:


> Agree with Danscraftbeer, I wouldn't be trusting that tester, being in Perth I would imagine your soil will be quite sandy, so if you are going to lime be aware that it will not stay there for long I would be waiting until the end of the season dig up the rhizome and put down plenty of compost and aged manure so you can be sure of plenty of nutrients being available and get a better pH test kit then test again.


im growing them in pots so using bunnings potting mix...


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## wynnum1 (10/11/15)

Potting mix can be poor quality they can even use toxic waste like landfill leachate and used sand blasting sand when they compost green waste.As long as any contaminates are below national standards in finished product then its legal .Have a look at some fertilizer that are sold with low levels of mercury cadmium and lead and have warnings on packaging not to use on certain crops.


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## Everest (15/11/15)

so just a quick update a week later.... maybe the addition of lime helped out a bit... i havent paid too much attention to them this week but




the bine on the right is over a month old and has been through mites and acid, the left bine (big and healthy) is a few days old...

looking better


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