2018 Hop Plantations

[fungrel]

A bad infestation of spider mites will cause all the flowers on the plant to brown.

Given a round of liquid copper, then a round of neem. Will check in a week to see if it's made a difference.
I believe some of the plants don't like being in a moist part of the yard, thinking of relocating a second and first year crown.

Does relocating a bine affect yield dramatically?

 

[Belgrave Brewer]

Given a round of liquid copper, then a round of neem. Will check in a week to see if it's made a difference.
I believe some of the plants don't like being in a moist part of the yard, thinking of relocating a second and first year crown.

Does relocating a bine affect yield dramatically?

Not dramatically, but in my experience, yes it will. I've planted crowns and have also moved and replanted crowns.

Hops love water, but not wet feet...they will suffer root rot sitting in moist soil long term. Better off moving them, and if you can mound them with a loamy soil.

 

[fungrel]

Not dramatically, but in my experience, yes it will. I've planted crowns and have also moved and replanted crowns.

Hops love water, but not wet feet...they will suffer root rot sitting in moist soil long term. Better off moving them, and if you can mound them with a loamy soil.

That's one thing I struggle with as a new grower (and others will most likely struggle too).. How do you know when to water? The plants themselves are such vigorous growers and they can be sitting in bone dry soil and not seem to wilt easily.

 

[Belgrave Brewer]

That's one thing I struggle with as a new grower (and others will most likely struggle too).. How do you know when to water? The plants themselves are such vigorous growers and they can be sitting in bone dry soil and not seem to wilt easily.

You can get a moisture meter at Bunnings or the local garden store, it's just a probe that sticks into the soil. I use one occasionally.

Mounding allows water to the plant but excess water is shed. When there is no rain here, I'm watering 14L per plant per day.

 

[pat_00]

14l each! no wonder I have crappy yields.

 

[koshari]

got some real nice burr coverage from 1st year cascade now,

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Small beginnings, but a couple handfuls of goldings harvested

 

[fungrel]

Cheers everyone for the help in diagnosing the strange wilting of smaller undeveloped cones. It seems that picking the dead and dying flowers, application of liquid copper and natrasoap did the job.

The first year chinook bines are absolutely loaded.

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah, looks like you'll be getting more than a couple of handfuls from that one!

Mine are all packed up for this season I think. There's about 10-12 flowers left on the Cascade bine but I don't think I'll bother picking them, they'd only come to about 1 or 2 grams dried anyway. It is starting to die back now, I guess the weird early flowering it went through has thrown it out of whack a bit. The Hallertau has completely died off, dunno what happened with that one but will see what it does next season. It was growing nicely although not as well as previous years, produced about 6 flowers then dropped dead all of a sudden.

I also have a Fuggle plant in a pot which is still green but there's only one bine on the mesh trellis - that one is more of a keep it alive until I can find it a bigger home situation rather than trying to get any flowers off it at the moment.

 

[Coodgee]

Yeah, looks like you'll be getting more than a couple of handfuls from that one!

Mine are all packed up for this season I think. There's about 10-12 flowers left on the Cascade bine but I don't think I'll bother picking them, they'd only come to about 1 or 2 grams dried anyway. It is starting to die back now, I guess the weird early flowering it went through has thrown it out of whack a bit. The Hallertau has completely died off, dunno what happened with that one but will see what it does next season. It was growing nicely although not as well as previous years, produced about 6 flowers then dropped dead all of a sudden.

I also have a Fuggle plant in a pot which is still green but there's only one bine on the mesh trellis - that one is more of a keep it alive until I can find it a bigger home situation rather than trying to get any flowers off it at the moment.

The fun of growing hops in brisbane eh. It's been such a hot summer I am not surprised nothing has done well.

 

[Rocker1986]

The fun of growing hops in brisbane eh. It's been such a hot summer I am not surprised nothing has done well.

Yeah it's not easy up here for yield at least, out of all three the Cascade has fared the best. Over 100g dry in both years, and grew really well early on completely covering the trellis. Not much of a haul compared to our southern friends but still enough for a couple of batches. The plants grow fine usually, it's just that they don't flower as well.

 

[Belgrave Brewer]

Yeah, looks like you'll be getting more than a couple of handfuls from that one!

Mine are all packed up for this season I think. There's about 10-12 flowers left on the Cascade bine but I don't think I'll bother picking them, they'd only come to about 1 or 2 grams dried anyway. It is starting to die back now, I guess the weird early flowering it went through has thrown it out of whack a bit. The Hallertau has completely died off, dunno what happened with that one but will see what it does next season. It was growing nicely although not as well as previous years, produced about 6 flowers then dropped dead all of a sudden.

I also have a Fuggle plant in a pot which is still green but there's only one bine on the mesh trellis - that one is more of a keep it alive until I can find it a bigger home situation rather than trying to get any flowers off it at the moment.

Yield slowing over the years may have to do with vernalisation. You might be better off removing the plant each year and going with a rhizome that's been in the fridge over winter. There's debate about this, but hops need time below 4C to set flowering for the following year.

 

[Rocker1986]

I've thought about doing that actually. Might give it a go this winter. The things are a bitch to get out of the soil though lol

 

[mofox1]

Oops. Pine hop frame snapped in half on Thursday. Guess I'm picking... good thing they were pretty much ready.

 

[Belgrave Brewer]

I've thought about doing that actually. Might give it a go this winter. The things are a bitch to get out of the soil though lol

Haha, yes they are. I have 30 to pull out this year.

 

[fungrel]

Yeah it's not easy up here for yield at least, out of all three the Cascade has fared the best. Over 100g dry in both years, and grew really well early on completely covering the trellis. Not much of a haul compared to our southern friends but still enough for a couple of batches. The plants grow fine usually, it's just that they don't flower as well.

Came across this info, perhaps it's relevant when growing in QLD?

 

[mofox1]

Well, so much for hoping for a reduced yield.

Got 4.8kg wet off the Chinook yesterday. Probably another bucket or so left to pick.

This is the one that fell over last week, so I lost a bit due to immature flowers, fallen, and dead/dried up ones due to broken bines.

Cascade will probably be picked next weekend.

 

[Belgrave Brewer]

50kgs of Victoria picked yesterday. Smaller groups coming today and tomorrow.

 

[Rocker1986]

Came across this info, perhaps it's relevant when growing in QLD?

View attachment 111537

What do they mean by cutting dates?

 

[cspencer]

50kgs of Victoria picked yesterday. Smaller groups coming today and tomorrow.

Brad, thanks again for letting me help out it was good fun. Thanks again for the Beers afterwards.
Clayton