Growing Hops

[andym]

Gday fellow brewers,

I've been brewing for a while now and have also got some hop plants in the back yard. I have two varieties grown from rhyzomes purchaced from a distributor down in tassie. i also have a third variety, grown from a cutting (not a rhyzome) which I purchased at a local farmers market.

Now I'm assuming my rhyzomes from Tassie are female as I beleive the guy i purchased them from knows what he is doing and wouldn't sell me male plants, the one from the farmers market however, I'm not sure about, which brings me to my question:

If i have a male plant growing in the same area as my female plants will this affect the females? (I know that with some other plants, in perticular 'plants of dubious legallity', which are in the same family as hops, the male plants turn the nearby female plants to males, obviously not a fate I want my female hops plants to suffer)

Also, is there any way to tell if a hops plant is male or female just by looking at it?

I would much appreciate any advice anyone could give me on this...Cheers

 

[jyo]

Gday fellow brewers,

I've been brewing for a while now and have also got some hop plants in the back yard. I have two varieties grown from rhyzomes purchaced from a distributor down in tassie. i also have a third variety, grown from a cutting (not a rhyzome) which I purchased at a local farmers market.

Now I'm assuming my rhyzomes from Tassie are female as I beleive the guy i purchased them from knows what he is doing and wouldn't sell me male plants, the one from the farmers market however, I'm not sure about, which brings me to my question:

If i have a male plant growing in the same area as my female plants will this affect the females? (I know that with some other plants, in perticular 'plants of dubious legallity', which are in the same family as hops, the male plants turn the nearby female plants to males, obviously not a fate I want my female hops plants to suffer)

Also, is there any way to tell if a hops plant is male or female just by looking at it?

I would much appreciate any advice anyone could give me on this...Cheers

The short answer is no, they won't be turned male, hops are either male or female. But if you have female plants around a male plant, the female could become pollinated, (by bees and such) which would result in a shed load of seeds. Hope the helps, mate.
Also, the rhizome you bought from the market- was it labelled as any particular variety?
Cheers, John.

Edit- The male flowers are in the top right hand corner of the pic. Do a google for 'male hop flowers', there are a few, but not many. And welcome to the forum, mate.

 

[matthendry]

Gday fellow brewers,

I've been brewing for a while now and have also got some hop plants in the back yard. I have two varieties grown from rhyzomes purchaced from a distributor down in tassie. i also have a third variety, grown from a cutting (not a rhyzome) which I purchased at a local farmers market.

Now I'm assuming my rhyzomes from Tassie are female as I beleive the guy i purchased them from knows what he is doing and wouldn't sell me male plants, the one from the farmers market however, I'm not sure about, which brings me to my question:

If i have a male plant growing in the same area as my female plants will this affect the females? (I know that with some other plants, in perticular 'plants of dubious legallity', which are in the same family as hops, the male plants turn the nearby female plants to males, obviously not a fate I want my female hops plants to suffer)

Also, is there any way to tell if a hops plant is male or female just by looking at it?

I would much appreciate any advice anyone could give me on this...Cheers

I'm a Aussie that lives in the US and grow organic hops in Vermont on a Small Farm and we sell some Willamette hop starts from some well established hop plants that have grown on the farm for 10 years and we doing softwood cuttings from our Cascade and Sterling Hops to expand our hop yard and may offer the cuttings for sale next year because Rhizomes take 3-5 years to develop before you can harvest rhizomes every year without doing damage to the main hop plant .

Cuttings are a better option when your a commercial grower than having to buy in rhizomes to establish or expand your hop yard and you can grow cuttings all year round in a greenhouse compared to which Rhizomes only have a short season .

Males are very hard to come by commercially unless you are breeding them and usually tightly controlled by the large commercial hop growers/brokers/researchers and are also rare in the Wild .


Theres a picture of male Inflorescence on this page (the only way to tell you have a male is when it 'flowers' )
http://www.ars-grin.gov/cor/cool/hops.html

 

[Wolfy]

If i have a male plant growing in the same area as my female plants will this affect the females? (I know that with some other plants, in perticular 'plants of dubious legallity', which are in the same family as hops, the male plants turn the nearby female plants to males, obviously not a fate I want my female hops plants to suffer)

If the cutting you have turns out to be male, your two female plants will not suffer.
However, it is highly likely that they will be pollinated by the male plant, I believe this will help increase the yield you receive from the two female plants, however it will also leave your hop cones with seeds in them. The seeds are useless for brewing, and generally make the cones weigh more, so it is not usual or common practice when growing hops. The other concern (especially in a commercial farm type situation) is that the seeds can drop to the ground, grow and since they are not genetically identical to the parent female plant these children may well have undesirable traits.
In the past, I believe that in large single variety plantings it was not uncommon to have several male plants of the same variety to help increase the yields.

For the first year, I'd suggest you grow all three plants, and when they flower confirm the sex of the unknown hop plant.
If it's male, you can then decide if you wish to keep it after that.

 

[andym]

Hey thanks to everyone for the advice, really helpfull, I'll wait till the mystery plant folwers and decide where to go from there.

To answer your question John the cutting i brought from the market was labeled as 'golden', I thought maybe it was meant to say goldings as i've never heard of golden hops before.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[Wolfy]

the cutting i brought from the market was labeled as 'golden', I thought maybe it was meant to say goldings as i've never heard of golden hops before.

If they are actually brewing-hops (I have no idea about ornamental hop varieties or names) I'd suggest they might be Cluster, since it's sometimes called 'Golden Cluster' (and are the same variety as 'Vienna Gold') a variety which I believe has been widely grown in Australia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hop_varieties

 

[mahonya1]

I've never attemtped to grow hops, but will be buying some in the next couple of weeks. I have a couple of questions....... firstly has anyone attemtped to grow Perle hops here in Australia? I wanted to try, but reading up on them I read that Perle hop vines do not like hot weather. So being in Brisbane I am not sure whether to try or choose a different variety.
Secondly, I read that the root system grows extensively. The place in my garden which would be ideal to grow them is right above the Sewage and drainage pipes. Is it likely that the root system will crack and block the pipes? I ask this because it has happened to me before with Lilly Pilly trees that I have since chopped down.
Cheers.

 

[Dazza_devil]

I grew my hops from seed and have a male plant which I thought had died since it never appeared the season before last. The damn thing came up this year and filled my cones with seeds. As for the hop plant's cousin, the males do not turn the females into males. The females can, what some call 'throwing balls', develop some male flowers if males aren't present and fertilize the buds. This is a bad thing, the buds will not develop in size any longer after fertilisation and the plants energy goes toward developing the seeds only. The buds will be full of seeds which explode if you try and smoke them. Same goes with the hop plant, you don't want males around unless you want a heap of seeds in your cones and under-developed buds. I have a thread about my hop plants which has pictures of both the male and female flowers from last season if you're interested http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...=male&st=20

 

[Wolfy]

firstly has anyone attemtped to grow Perle hops here in Australia? I wanted to try, but reading up on them I read that Perle hop vines do not like hot weather. So being in Brisbane I am not sure whether to try or choose a different variety.
Secondly, I read that the root system grows extensively. The place in my garden which would be ideal to grow them is right above the Sewage and drainage pipes. Is it likely that the root system will crack and block the pipes? I ask this because it has happened to me before with Lilly Pilly trees that I have since chopped down.
Cheers.

Check the Hop Plant Register - in the articles section of the website - a number of people grow Perle, but I'm not sure how they compare to other plants.
What I found - personally - is that how the plant grows depends on many factors, some of which I suspect are where the plant was sourced from and its heritage. However, I do also feel that some of the newer varieties bred to emulate older styles tend to do a little better for me, if you like Perle, you could try Nugget, Mt Hood (both grew well for me last year), or Liberty, however I have not grown Perle to compare it to others.

Hops do have an extensive root system, up to 2.5m in depth, but I don't think you'd have as much trouble with them as full-grown trees.

 

[Wolfy]

the cutting i brought from the market was labeled as 'golden', I thought maybe it was meant to say goldings as i've never heard of golden hops before.

I was doing some research on companion planting for my hops and came across this: http://www.paghat.com/hop.html
Unfortunately for your beer-brewing, it seems there is a fairly popular ornimental hop variety called the "Golden Hop Vine".

 

[Mitternacht Brauer]

Hi guys

I added Perle to my list last growing season and it came on very strong. I got it from the father inlaw and his plants went well too. I am along way south than Brissy.

At Wolfy , are you a shift worker too?

MB

 

[Wolfy]

At Wolfy , are you a shift worker too?

Sleep is over rated.

 

[andym]

Cheers again everyone, checking out some pictures i have discovered my 'golden' hop plant is male and is now G O N E! I've ordered a nice cascade rhyzome to replace it. Thanks again to everyone for the advice.