2010 Hop Plantations

[kelbygreen]

nice to see your plants going well tony Yeah that rhizome was a freak cant remember who I bought it off. Only reason I gave it away is I already had a POR rhizome in the ground and it was a to good a deal to pass. I soon realised I doubt I will need 2 POR plants so kept the one already planted lol.

My are starting to get new growth now but doubt I will get any cones this year. I am going to replant them and do it properly this time it was a bit of a rush job and nothing was fully finished so its my own fault but hope they at least had some root growth to get them going for next year.

 

[Blue Dawg]

My Cascade had the life beaten out of them over the last 2 days down here on the Vic west coast.
The wind broke the support strings and bruised 75% of the cones.

I was planing on a harvest today, which gave me 3 buckets of not so good cones.
Never mind I'm sure the beer will taste deelux anyways.

POR is still a week or so from harvest and got off lightly compared to the Cascade.

Also bottled the first home grown Cascade Pale tonight, will be a long wait conditioning these suckers...

 

[Brad Churchill]

That's a bugger mate.
I wonder if it's possible to set up some sort of shade cloth protection for the hotter months.
Not sure this would work and it would be a bit of stuffing around. Just a thought....
I was thinking a few posts cemented in the ground. You could then frame up some shade cloth to bolt to the posts for when the sun is really harsh. Perhaps have it set up so that it doesn't block all the sun but mayb half of it through the hottest part of the day.

Bit of work but what won't we do for this fine hobby of ours .

Hopefully some one else has had similar problems and can offer some proven advice.

Cheers Brad.

Well, harvested my 2 year old Hersbrucker today. 55 grams wet...I'm not taking a photo, it's embarrassing! My 2nd year Cascade has not produced ANY cones...
I don't know if any others have this experience in Perth but my hops seem to boom along with strong, healthy growth from Spetember Oct, NoV and then develop a decent amount of burrs. Then when Summer hits they get completely fried from the sun and wind. Those of you who live or have lived in Perth, particularly at the foothills, will know about the shocking, almost daily Easterly winds that we get. The winds 'bruise' the cones and dry the shit out of them, ending up with about half that are dwarfed. This is my experience anyway.
I fertilise with cow shit, blood and bone, seasol, another organic liquid fertiliser, so nutrient deficiencies is not the problem.
I was wondering about others in the Perth region and their experiences.

Cheers, John.

 

[keifer33]

Well, harvested my 2 year old Hersbrucker today. 55 grams wet...I'm not taking a photo, it's embarrassing! My 2nd year Cascade has not produced ANY cones...
I don't know if any others have this experience in Perth but my hops seem to boom along with strong, healthy growth from Spetember Oct, NoV and then develop a decent amount of burrs. Then when Summer hits they get completely fried from the sun and wind. Those of you who live or have lived in Perth, particularly at the foothills, will know about the shocking, almost daily Easterly winds that we get. The winds 'bruise' the cones and dry the shit out of them, ending up with about half that are dwarfed. This is my experience anyway.
I fertilise with cow shit, blood and bone, seasol, another organic liquid fertiliser, so nutrient deficiencies is not the problem.
I was wondering about others in the Perth region and their experiences.

Cheers, John.

I would have to agree John, mine went mental for first year plants..then dec/early jan it was like a flame had come and burnt them. Will be thinking over winter on a shade cloth system to protect them even just a little bit along the lines of running the wires for the bines to grop on and then running a few cross wires with shade cloth to project it from around 11-4 where the sun goes in the garden. My cascade just died back totally and has shot back up to around 2 x 2m bines but hasnt produced anything. My wuert has produced a handful of cones but are all growing at different rates so cant really pick alot. I did harvest my first 2 cones today with a big smile but dismal when its compared to the basket fulls in previous photos. Even if I didn't get a big harvest it inspired me to get my camera out and use it for like the first time in 6 months.

 

[jyo]

That's a bugger mate.
I wonder if it's possible to set up some sort of shade cloth protection for the hotter months.
Cheers Brad.

Cheers, Brad. A mate tried the shadecloth this year on his third year Chinook. The Easterlies fried his. He got less cones than me...
Spoonta from AHB has also reported crap yields.

I would have to agree John, mine went mental for first year plants..then dec/early jan it was like a flame had come and burnt them. Will be thinking over winter on a shade cloth system to protect them even just a little bit along the lines of running the wires for the bines to grop on and then running a few cross wires with shade cloth to project it from around 11-4 where the sun goes in the garden. My cascade just died back totally and has shot back up to around 2 x 2m bines but hasnt produced anything. My wuert has produced a handful of cones but are all growing at different rates so cant really pick alot. I did harvest my first 2 cones today with a big smile but dismal when its compared to the basket fulls in previous photos. Even if I didn't get a big harvest it inspired me to get my camera out and use it for like the first time in 6 months.

Yea, Keifer, it's frustrating. I will give them another go this year, but if I don't see any improvement I may have a heap of Rhizomes up for grabs. There I was at the start of the season thinking I was going to get at least enough for a double batch <_<
It's great to see all of these fresh hop pics coming in though, blokes.
Cheers, John.

 

[Blue Dawg]

It was the wind that damaged the cones, the heat hasn't been too bad here this "summer".
We have had 3 hot days around 40deg, the rest has been humid or cloudy mild, which is not so good when you live at the beach in Vic..

 

[Mitternacht Brauer]

Hi Guys ,

Here is a pic of my efforts yesterday. All off one Hersbrucker . All up 5 bucket loads . I will weigh the cones when dry.



This year all my hop plants have been neglected as opposed to previous years. They had some seasol early in their growth but that hasn't happened for some months. Only a Perle in a pot had the leaves clipped around the base.

They are on the easterly side of the house so are protected from the sun in the afternoon.

I don't mean to gloat but Woohoo!! :lol:

MB

 

[cdbrown]

Well, harvested my 2 year old Hersbrucker today. 55 grams wet...I'm not taking a photo, it's embarrassing! My 2nd year Cascade has not produced ANY cones...
I don't know if any others have this experience in Perth but my hops seem to boom along with strong, healthy growth from Spetember Oct, NoV and then develop a decent amount of burrs. Then when Summer hits they get completely fried from the sun and wind. Those of you who live or have lived in Perth, particularly at the foothills, will know about the shocking, almost daily Easterly winds that we get. The winds 'bruise' the cones and dry the shit out of them, ending up with about half that are dwarfed. This is my experience anyway.
I fertilise with cow shit, blood and bone, seasol, another organic liquid fertiliser, so nutrient deficiencies is not the problem.
I was wondering about others in the Perth region and their experiences.

Cheers, John.

The bines on mine are still trying to climb and aren't showing any signs of producing hops so unfortunately can't help with the wind.

 

[Wolfy]

This year all my hop plants have been neglected as opposed to previous years.
...
I don't mean to gloat but Woohoo!! :lol:

Well worth gloating for a haul like that, well done.

I think we've been a bit lucky with the weather this year, there has hardly been any extended hot/dry/windy periods, so - unlike previous years - hops have thrived with minimal care.

 

[Malted]

I think we've been a bit lucky with the weather this year, there has hardly been any extended hot/dry/windy periods, so - unlike previous years - hops have thrived with minimal care.

Still waiting for some update pictures of your bines on the farm...

 

[grimpanda]

Didn't think it would happen, but I might actually end up with enough hops from my first years plantation for a brew!

I've got two Hallertau, one Fuggles and one Tettnang which are all at various stages of flowering.

The Tettnang took off first and climbed quickly, but sadly died back - yet to really determine why.

The Hallertau are by far doing the best - I think i'm fairly close to being able to harvest some - they're developing a little more aroma each day. Should I just pick them when they go papery, regardless of aroma?

 

[Bretto77]

Hi Nick,
I did similar and placed some solo lights to the base of the plant. Second years crop was greay over 100gms of Casade very happy big cones great smell. Seems that keeping first year yeild expectations low is the key.

Brett

This is my first try, Brett. I hear the first year is always pretty crap for yield as the rhizome is hell bent of establishing itself. I heard the trick is to fool the thing into thinking the suns setting at 10pm, so I'm going to wrap a cheapo length of those christmas lights up the string and put the timer to come on at 6pm and go off at 10pm - they're only a few watts.

Yield is supposed to have a lot to do with photoperiod.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoperiodism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytochrome

 

[Stinger]

Finished drying and vac packing the Hops, there is still another pick to go to clean up the hops left on the bush. My first harvest yielded Cascade about 750gm dry and Chinook 75gm dry. About a similiar amount of chinook left on the bine and maybe a quarter of the Cascade left.
Growing in the soil I found I had to pump on the nutrients, loads of NPK Blue plus blood and bone, seaweed juice and extra nitrogen, they lapped it up. I also didn't bother to select the strongest bines, reckoned that let them all have a go and feed the plant up. I only had 2.5metre trellis so I had to train all of the bines that grew over the top sidewasy away from the Saaz so they didn't get mixed up.
After drying I think I have underhopped the harvest ale I put down with fresh hops, i only doubled the dry weight to get the amount of wet hops to put into the boil but after drying an estimated 4-5kg wet hops down to 750gm it seems my ratio is a touch out :blink: Will just have to see how it all goes. Could rack into secondary and dry hop more?

 

[lagers44]

now I'm depressed ! my first year chinook gave me 15gm wet cones so i didn't bother to weigh them when dry..................oh well i may just soak them in my next pint .

 

[petesbrew]

now I'm depressed ! my first year chinook gave me 15gm wet cones so i didn't bother to weigh them when dry..................oh well i may just soak them in my next pint .

Hehe, my perle has supplied me with a bountiful 10g. As it's my first ever harvest I'm stoked with anything. Will dry hop them in a knk lager I've got planned soon.

 

[Lecterfan]

I'll try to steal my gf's camera this weekend but I thought I'd offer some observations.

I just picked 900gms (wet) cascade and 700gms (wet) of chinook.

The chinook cones were more uniform in size and shape. In general they were a bit smaller than the cascade but certainly based on feel, shape and presence of lupulin they were at the same developmental stage. The chinook grew nicely in pairs or groups of 4 and I could pick a group at a time.

The cascade is all random shapes and sizes (this is my second harvest of them but this time I was less discriminating as they are all starting to look as though they could get papery and brown and ruined if this weekend heats up), but there is simply truckloads of it and the flowers are scattered all over the place.

Not sure how I'll go with drying and storing them all (I have kindly been offered a vac sealer to borrow this weekend), but I'm going to do a LFPA on Friday using all chinook and cascade and just guesstimating the chinook is going to be at least %8-10. If it's heaps more I don't care, I can handle the IBU's haha. I'm going to try FWH in place of the 20 min hop addition.

Awesome. :beerbang:

 

[husky]

Finally got some pictures on my hops. Made up a steel frame from 40x40x3 SHS that is around 3.5 m high. It was not going to be this high initially but im glad I did as there are not many cones on the first two metres or so, but hundrest in the top section that gets alot of sun.
1st year POR rhizome on left and 1st year Cascade rhizome on right. No special soil treatment but it gid get watered on the hotter days. Nearly time to harvest I think, some cones getting brownish tinge and yellow lupin beginning to appear.

 

[Lecterfan]

This is madness. Just picked another 1kg of cascade and 700 gms chinook.

The chinook is now bare but the cascade looks like its barely been touched.

Anyone in the Ballarat area who wants to pick some cascade hops for themselves PM me.

 

[husky]

Picked a handfull yesterday to get an idea of how ready they may be. Looking at the pics can anyone suggest it they "look" ready to pick. I was expecting a pungent smell but perhaps that comes after theyre dried. The felp a bit papery but spring back to original position when squeezed.

 

[wakkatoo]

going by what I have read, once they start to brown then they have just passed the ideal time to pick (apparently need to pick just before they brown, but that can be difficult to tell). Mine look similar and I was expecting more of a hoppy smell as well. Think I'm used to the strong aroma of the concentrated pellets.

So to answer - yes, they needed to be picked