2017 Hop Plantations, Show Us Your Hop Garden!

[Benn]

I'll send the kids up, they're nimble.

 

[Rocker1986]

This morning I picked another smaller harvest from my Cascade of 90g wet flowers, so these should dry out to around 22-23g over the next couple of days, which will give me about 100g dry so far this season, with the first harvest. There is another burst of burrs on the plant at the moment, so in another few weeks or so there will be another harvest, probably a similar size to the first one. Pretty good going for a first year plant.

 

[N3MIS15]

Left: 2nd Year Cascade has got a bunch of cones forming (This is only a small section of the plant).
Right: First year Columbus isn't far behind.

 

[mofox1]

Hops be weird this year. I'm looking at a significantly reduced yield to the previous couple years.

I have basically no laterals (and thus no hops) below 3.5 - 4m. Last year I had plenty down to about 1.5m. As far as I can tell, I'm not really giving them any more attention, or ignoring them any more either. In fact this year they haven't had to deal with falling over a half dozen times and being restrung, they haven't been burnt to a crisp by insanely hot weather. What the heck did I do wrong!

 

[Danscraftbeer]

What location are you mofox?
All the generalization I can make is soil health. My chinook (great performer this year) gets no attention but it is growing next to my compost pile that gets fed with all green/veg and beer waste and is riddled with worms. Feed the soil/worms with lots of compostable's. ?

 

[Rocker1986]

My second year Hallertau has done **** all this year as well, it's grown up all over the trellis wires but hasn't really produced anything decent in the way of flowers, so I haven't even bothered harvesting anything from it yet. Exactly the same soil and conditions as the first year Cascade that's gone nuts with flowering. I dunno.. at least the bloody thing hasn't died :lol:

 

[Mardoo]

What the heck did I do wrong!

Dunno. Are you in control of everything or not? If so, then pull yourself the **** together, eh?

 

[mofox1]

Dunno. Are you in control of everything or not? If so, then pull yourself the **** together, eh?

Oi you, you'll get yours.

 

[mofox1]

What location are you mofox?
All the generalization I can make is soil health. My chinook (great performer this year) gets no attention but it is growing next to my compost pile that gets fed with all green/veg and beer waste and is riddled with worms. Feed the soil/worms with lots of compostable's. ?

Vic, Melbourne. They got compost & chook poo prior to growing season. Powerfeed, seasol etc as they kicked off, some extra chook poop as they were growing. Same as last year.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Got to agree with Danscraftbeer, soil has to be fed and that means lots of compost, composted waste or composted animal manure, I would suspect there are too many overfeeding the plants during the growing season especially with liquid feed, compost will replenish the soil of the nutrients which the plants used up the previous year
I have noticed the hop growers in the UK at the end of the growing season put down lime to sweeten the soil so when the time comes to put down the composted animal manure it will balance out the pH.
https://www.growveg.com.au/guides/supercharge-your-soil-this-spring/?redir

 

[Mardoo]

Take care of what's underground. What's above ground will almost always take care of itself.

 

[ScottyDoesntKnow]

Haha I am not much of a green thumb, whats the saying, "you only get out what you put in"? Can't be bothered with fertilizing and soil treatment etc. I've even stopped watering them and just letting mother nature do it's job.... So yesterday I harvested a whopping 18g off my 3 first year Chinooks :lol:
Though I did notice in the last couple of days there are quite a few new laterals sprouting plus ive got a heaps more not ready to pick just yet.
Hopefully I get enough for a 50+ gram dry hop and i'll be happy

 

[Belgrave Brewer]

Hops be weird this year. I'm looking at a significantly reduced yield to the previous couple years.

I have basically no laterals (and thus no hops) below 3.5 - 4m. Last year I had plenty down to about 1.5m. As far as I can tell, I'm not really giving them any more attention, or ignoring them any more either. In fact this year they haven't had to deal with falling over a half dozen times and being restrung, they haven't been burnt to a crisp by insanely hot weather. What the heck did I do wrong!

It's was a crap year weatherwise to start. Growth came late for me here in VIC, and for a while, thought it would be a bad harvest year. I also have quite a few plants that did not produce lower laterals.

How old are your plants?

Some things that could be causing issues:
- Cutting back to crown and removing rhizomes every 3 years should help reinvigorate the plants.
- It could also be that the soil temperature is not cold enough where you are over winter for vernalisation, so flowering will suffer.
- pH level of the soil? If it's not in the sweet spot, nutrients can be locked out even if they are in the soil and ready for the plants.
- Cones developing on earlier bines before sidearms grow on later bines will lessen yield.
- Extra bines not cut back leads to more vegetative growth and less flowers (after first year root development)

 

[mofox1]

It's was a crap year weatherwise to start. Growth came late for me here in VIC, and for a while, thought it would be a bad harvest year. I also have quite a few plants that did not produce lower laterals.

How old are your plants? 3 years now.

Some things that could be causing issues:
- Cutting back to crown and removing rhizomes every 3 years should help reinvigorate the plants. Did this with the Chinook, looks identical to the Cascade (not moved) growing 3m away.
- It could also be that the soil temperature is not cold enough where you are over winter for vernalisation, so flowering will suffer. Possible... can't remember many frosts (I'm near your neck of the woods).
- pH level of the soil? If it's not in the sweet spot, nutrients can be locked out even if they are in the soil and ready for the plants. No idea, I've got a pH meter and test strips so no excuses here.
- Cones developing on earlier bines before sidearms grow on later bines will lessen yield. Don't think it's this - almost all the bines that "made it" emerged around the same time, grew about the same rate, started producing burrs around the same time.
- Extra bines not cut back leads to more vegetative growth and less flowers (after first year root development) This. I possibly have too many bines in total... up to 3 on some lines I think, although others only have one bine that made it. Would have to check to see what the tally actually is.

Cheers BB. Last point is probably the kicker. Next year I'll have to be more aggressive with in trimming down to only 1 or 2 bines per line (I have 6 lines per mound). It's just so hard when you are watching your little ones start to grow up!

 

[Belgrave Brewer]

Cheers BB. Last point is probably the kicker. Next year I'll have to be more aggressive with in trimming down to only 1 or 2 bines per line (I have 6 lines per mound). It's just so hard when you are watching your little ones start to grow up!

So you have 6 lines per plant with up to 3 bines per line? Might be asking a lot from the plant, but some let it all grow and have decent yield. I was referring to cutting back all undergrowth if you aren't doing that.

Definitely check soil pH.

 

[mofox1]

So you have 6 lines per plant with up to 3 bines per line? Might be asking a lot from the plant, but some let it all grow and have decent yield. I was referring to cutting back all undergrowth if you aren't doing that.

Definitely check soil pH.

Aha. All good, my undergrowth is well trimmed.

Wait....

 

[Rocker1986]

Regarding the soil temp not being cold enough over the winter, this is most probably an issue in Brisbane, and since I don't really have any practical way of refrigerating the crown over this period, do the plants acclimatise to local conditions after a few years or whatever and begin to produce better as the years go on? Or do they always need to be chilled down further than it gets here in order to flower well? This first year Cascade has gone nuts with flowers but I suspect the rhizome would have been kept cold during the winter and it did stay in the fridge here for a few weeks before I planted it too. After this season is over though, it will have to stay in the soil so I'm wondering whether the harvest next season will be lessened as a result. It seems to have worked out that way for the Hallertau so far :unsure:

 

[Benn]

Cascades creating a nice little Beer Garden. I'm out here most nights with a HB just admiring the bines. The burrs look like hundreds of tiny sea anemones.
...it's Friday, Cheers

 

[Curly79]

They are great for shade and as an ornamental plant aren't they. I was ready to give mine away after last year but I'll be definitely keeping this POR on the back porch.

 

[Belgrave Brewer]

Regarding the soil temp not being cold enough over the winter, this is most probably an issue in Brisbane, and since I don't really have any practical way of refrigerating the crown over this period, do the plants acclimatise to local conditions after a few years or whatever and begin to produce better as the years go on? Or do they always need to be chilled down further than it gets here in order to flower well? This first year Cascade has gone nuts with flowers but I suspect the rhizome would have been kept cold during the winter and it did stay in the fridge here for a few weeks before I planted it too. After this season is over though, it will have to stay in the soil so I'm wondering whether the harvest next season will be lessened as a result. It seems to have worked out that way for the Hallertau so far :unsure:

I don't have any experience with this, but know it is an issue with some of the US growers. Hops need about 6 weeks at 3C over winter, and not having it will affect flowering. I get about 20 nights below 0C where I am and I doubt this is ideal.

Look into vernalization. It may be the case that you are better off starting from rhizome again every year or every few years if you can't get the crowns in a fridge over winter. Someone will have the answer.