Hop Doctor Required

[goatus]

Hi All,

Here is my first year hop plant which as you can see winds all over the place as I try to keep it on my little privacy screen:


And here is what the lower (older) leaves are doing:


Anyone speak hop and know what it is trying to tell me? Not enough Water? Nutrient deficiency? Disease? It started doing this on the very low leaves about a month ago. I heard that you should strip the lower leaves near the ground anyway to prevent pests.. so I did so, and they have now grown new bright green leaves:


Should I continue to strip the browning leaves? As you can see from the first photo it seems to be spreading up the bines.

Any ideas?

Here are the best flowers I have on it so far:

 

[barls]

possibly potassium
http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/min-def/hops.htm

 

[goatus]

Thanks Barls, great website.

So you think just throw some potash down and water it in? How much should I add? I dont wanna burn my baby.

 

[barls]

give it a go, they are normally fairly hardy. id go a half measure whats on the pack and see how it goes.

 

[felten]

20g to 9L of water or a tight handful over a square meter, at least that's what I use

 

[Screwtop]

Another

http://www.primalseeds.org/nutrients.htm

 

[proudscum]

Just to be on the safe side have a very close look at the underside of the leaves for spidermite.
Small like really small spots black or red that are moving around on the leaf they will also leave a small cobweb like thread between leaf and stem.

happy hunting

 

[Tanga]

May not be potassium - it looks more like nitrogen to me (though they do look pretty similar potassium leaves don't usually dry out on the edges like that)

Nitrogen deficiency by the look of it mate. It will start with the older leaves, and move gradually up the plant. I presume you're fertillising? If not, do so, a good stinky fertilliser should do it (blood and bone, etc). A liquid seaweed fertiliser like Seasol will give it a quick fix if you can afford it.

If you have fertilised (or even if you haven't) it may be due to a pH issue in the soil. If pH is high (or low, but it's probably high) then plants have trouble absorbing the nutrients they need. Get a cheap pH kit (if you don't have one) from Bunnings) and check. If you've been watering it with laundry water you can almost guarantee it'll be high. If it is then potash will make the problem worse!

Check pH, check pH, check pH! Before doing anything but a basic fertilise.

Tell me the results and I'll let you know what is a good thing to do.

Mites, etc, are often a symptom of a deeper underlying problem rather than a problem in and of themselves. My money's on pH being the culprit.



More info on your watering, fertilising, etc, regimes will help me help you to narrow it down.




EDIT: Or it could be overfertilising. Weird as this sounds too much of a good thing like mulch, cow poo, etc, can lock up all the available nitrogen as it breaks down. If it's not pH, then it could be this. Seasol (or a different branded seaweed treatment) should help with this too.

 

[goatus]

Cheers all for your tips. I dont have a PH testing kit, but after Tangas passionate plea not to use potash, I got out some seasol powerfeed i had in the shed and had a look on the back, looks like that contains both nitrogen AND pottasium.. so ive just given it a soak with that.. should be the best of both worlds. I will let you know if I see any improvement in the coming weeks.

Thanks all! =)

 

[Tanga]

Cool! If you don't see any improvement then chances are it will be a pH problem. If the pH is too far out then it doesn't matter how much of the nutrient is in the soil the plant won't be able to absorb them.

I hope it all works out, those are some great looking hops plants.