2010 Hop Plantations

[wakkatoo]

earlier on in this thread I think there was talk to just let them grow and you will get a staggered harvest. The idea behind select 1-2 and cutting the rest comes from the hop farmers wanting to have just the single harvest.

 

[Mitternacht Brauer]

LOL, cows have short necks and they are being planted 1m in from the fence, so they *should* be OK, I hope.

Hey Wolfy,
If the cows take a shining to the hops I think the fence might be in trouble .

MB

 

[the_yobbo]

earlier on in this thread I think there was talk to just let them grow and you will get a staggered harvest. The idea behind select 1-2 and cutting the rest comes from the hop farmers wanting to have just the single harvest.

Ok, that makes sense (I recall reading that earlier, didn't realise it was this thread). So, If I've got a stake in a pot with only a single screw eye at the top, I should convince all the shoots head up the single bine or I should be looking at getting a trellis setup and let it grow where ever it wants.

 

[Wolfy]

If I've got a stake in a pot with only a single screw eye at the top, I should convince all the shoots head up the single bine or I should be looking at getting a trellis setup and let it grow where ever it wants.

Hops will grow to about 5m tall, can you put the pot near a tree, building or something tall you could tie a line to?
The next best thing (but requires a bit of work) is to force/train the bines along a horizontal fence/trellis or the like.

 

[Nick JD]

LOL, cows have short necks and they are being planted 1m in from the fence, so they *should* be OK, I hope.

Never underestimate the cunning of a bovine with a single foodsource. :icon_cheers:

 

[Wolfy]

If the cows take a shining to the hops I think the fence might be in trouble .

So far the only thing that has damaged the fence is one of those big round hay bales rolling down the hill - I think the fence will be fine.

Never underestimate the cunning of a bovine with a single foodsource. :icon_cheers:

Yep, its called grass, and they have a paddock full of it!

 

[the_yobbo]

So far the only thing that has damaged the fence is one of those big round hay bales rolling down the hill - I think the fence will be fine.

Yep, its called grass, and they have a paddock full of it!

Whatever helps you sleep at night Wolfy.

 

[unrealeous]

Look on my hops, ye mighty, and despair

 

[Malted]

Hey Wolfy,
If the cows take a shining to the hops I think the fence might be in trouble .

MB

Wolfy,
I totally agree with MB.

Time for some cow culture (I apologise if I am telling you how to suck eggs):
1 metre is not much despite their 'short' necks, they'll push on the fence just to try and eat the hops out of curiosity. Despite primarily eating grass they will chew or lick the darndest things: trickle irrigation line for instance - I have seen them walking around with lengths hanging out of their mouths and chewing on it like bubble gum and that was in a lush green pasture with grain feeders also available (so they could not have been starved)! They'll lick anything and everything (eg cars, motorbikes) just to suss it out, like the way we touch things to investigate them.

Imagine when the hops are flowering and smell good to us, betchya they will like the smell too...

Fences are more like an honesty system for cattle, if they have enough motivation they'll keep pushing until something gives and you're putting temptation quite close; the rhizomes are 1 metre from the fence but the foliage will spread a bit...
BTW, they don't really bite grass off, they yank on it. If they get a few leaves in their gob they'll pull down what ever comes with them.

Maybe I am being too pessimistic, maybe they won't touch the hop bines (but I suspect they'll like the smell of the flowers); let's just call this over-cautious & unsolicited advice.

 

[batemanbrewer]

This is my first year setup- 2700mm high, bout 1500mm wide

these trellises (trellii? :huh: ) probably won't last more than a year but I'm happy with it for the first year

 

[Nevalicious]

This is my first year setup- 2700mm high, bout 1500mm wide

these trellises (trellii? :huh: ) probably won't last more than a year but I'm happy with it for the first year

Wanna be careful a gust of wind doesn't blow them over into the pool... When in bloom and full height, may be a little top heavy??

I hear the hop plants can become quite heavy?!

Bah, I'm a noob at all of this too. Who knows, will probably be fine! :icon_cheers:

Tyler

 

[Wolfy]

My chinook has sent out shoots more than 2m from where i planted the rhizome. Its more than 3m from the nearest other rhizome but each year they seem to shoot closer together.

What I forgot to mention is that for any variety's with only a single plant, I'll be encouraging it to spread like this in the first year.
Rather than trim additional shoots, the plan is to let them grow to about 2-3m, dig a trench across to the other side of the row to bury most of the bine.
By the end of summer the buried bines should have taken root and will be new plants/rhizomes.

 

[Bribie G]

Doing nicely so far. I was reading on an American Site that when the runners are 30cm long I should select four or six of the best and prune the rest. So I'll probably run two off one side and two off the other, and train them on wires stretched from fence post to fence post. And wow don't they look like my stepdaughter's croppy she has in pots in her sunny courtyard where nobody can see in h34r:

Edit: Wolfy, yes I did read your post but at this stage I'm not concerned with proliferating the plants as it's just along a longish fenceline, would prefer to keep everything manageable and compact.

Also another question for the experienced:

The fenceline is shared by an easment into a unit complex behind us and there is a little strip of bushes and decorative plants along their side that is looked after by their body corp. The fence on my side points North West and gets full sun virtually all day from around mid morning. So is the foliage going to grow nearly all on my side? I hope so as I don't want to have the body corp guys hacking too much down. <_<

 

[drsmurto]

Why do people cut their plants back?

All the reading i have done suggest this is something commercial hop growers do to make harvesting easy. Somehow its turned into an urban myth and now quoted as THE thing to do.

Does anyone following this practice have any evidence that such a practice increases the yield or is this a case of monkey see, monkey do?

 

[arogers]

I'm no expert when it comes to growing plants but...

...how is cutting bines off meant to increase yield?

Surely thats a little like saying "Hey, I'll cut this branch off that pine over there... It will grow to full size quicker that way."

 

[MarkBastard]

Why do people cut their plants back?

All the reading i have done suggest this is something commercial hop growers do to make harvesting easy. Somehow its turned into an urban myth and now quoted as THE thing to do.

Does anyone following this practice have any evidence that such a practice increases the yield or is this a case of monkey see, monkey do?

I've found if you try to cut the sprouts from the ground back it just means the existing ones will grow laterals near their base and these grow up as if they were coming from the ground anyway.

The hop plant wants a certain amount of bine/leafs/flowers above the ground IMO and it will find a way to do it.

On one of my hops I only had a single bine, and I accidently broke the tip at about 1.5m high, not to worry, all of the leaves underneath it turned into laterals which climbed up the existing bine like it was a trelis and I ended up having about 15 'bines' coming off this main one by the end of the season, all wrapped around each other.

Just chuck the buggers in the pot / ground and make sure they don't rot or dry out IMO.

BTW Batemen your pots look completely wrong for hop growing IMO.

 

[Bribie G]

I would guess that if it's to do with increasing yield then it may be analogous to pinching out tomato side shoots so you end up with a few strongly growing vines with lots of fruit, as opposed to just letting them sprawl and ending up with mostly weak stems mostly foliage, and often poor crops. Maybe.
Also I read somewhere that you should keep the plant 'opened up' to avoid fungus diseases. Hopefully not a problem in QLD where my nearest hops would be at QLD kev's place

edit: oops, forgot about Mark B - Mate I'm going to install a quarantine gate at the Bribie Bridge

 

[QldKev]

Why do people cut their plants back?

All the reading i have done suggest this is something commercial hop growers do to make harvesting easy. Somehow its turned into an urban myth and now quoted as THE thing to do.

Does anyone following this practice have any evidence that such a practice increases the yield or is this a case of monkey see, monkey do?

My understanding it has more to do with planting closely together on commercial properties as they are trying to maximise the return per acre. If you have too many bines growing too closely together they can block out the light from each other limiting growth potential, and also possibly causing fungal problems. So by keeping 3 bines per plant you achieve a larger healthier crop. Height is generally a cheap way to increase real estate. Since at home we tend to have our plants spaced out more it is not such an issue.

QldKev

 

[beerbrewer76543]

Last year I let my 7 new rhizomes go wild and regularly watered and fed them. I think I got 5 hops in total from them, though they were first year plants.

This year I plan to trim back all but 4 shoots on each plant to get strong growth on those rather than a heap of spindly bines like last year

Also I'm going to move them into the full sun all day. I thought they wouldn't hack it in summer but I'm pretty sure being in the shade half a day didn't help with growth or yield. As long as they are watered every day in a heat wave they seem to be able to handle the heat without wilting. Time to set up that aquaponics system perhaps...

 

[MattSR]

I'm no expert when it comes to growing plants but...

...how is cutting bines off meant to increase yield?

Surely thats a little like saying "Hey, I'll cut this branch off that pine over there... It will grow to full size quicker that way."

Pruning does help - I always keep my tomatos to two runners and it increases tomato yield for sure - more energy goes into the fruit rather than sprouting leafy green crap.