Hop Plants After Harvest And Moving Home

[dabre4]

Hi all,

I have to move home pretty soon and am in a bit of a predicament with my hop plants (Chinook and Cascade), both of which are in pot plants.

Firstly, the Chinook primed pretty early and I picked the last of the cones this morning (there is only a handful of green ones left). Would I harm the plant in any way if I cut it down, leaving around one foot of the bine left from the base.


My cascade however is still a long way from harvesting. Has anyone had to move a fully grown plant before and have some wise words of advice? I have trained it up some string, so am hoping I can kind of coil it up for transport. However, I can see this in me just snapping the bine.

This is the plants first year, so if worst comes to worst I'll just trim them both down and wait fit next year.

Cheers.

 

[proudscum]

i would just try and coil em up.its the rhizome that you are trying to keep healthy.if they are to big then cut them back to a couple of meters.I would even consider wrapping the bines together with some glad wrap to help protect them.

my 2c

 

[ploto]

I have no experience with hop plants but my inclination would be to give the cascade a tidy up prune and carefully coil the vines up, either gently tie them or cover them in a sack or cloth. Plastic would be ok for a short trip as long as it's not under direct sun as it won't breathe and may get too hot. I once cooked some ornamental plants that were in black garbage bags on the back seat of a car for a half hour trip

For both pots I would make sure they have been well watered for a few days in advance as this will reduce stress in the plants, but don't water the same day or you may find things get a bit muddy. Good luck with the move

 

[Feldon]

My 2c (admission: I don't grow hops)
After flowering is over, the plant turns it attention away from the vital need to reproduce and instead puts most of the energy it receives from the sun (photosynthesis) into rebuilding the starch reserves in the rhizomes (think potatos) to prepare for next seasons sprouting and growth. Thus the lifecycle continues.
By cutting the plant back immediately after flowering you are asking the plant to make do at the start of next growing season with what starch reserves it has now. If it's a really well-fed healthy plant that's had heaps of light and warmth over summer it might not have much affect at all, but otherwise it may lack vigour at the start of next season, and at worse might kark it (but perhaps unlikely) through disease, parasites etc. (weak plants are vulnerable to these things).

 

[proudscum]

My 2c (admission: I don't grow hops)
After flowering is over, the plant turns it attention away from the vital need to reproduce and instead puts most of the energy it receives from the sun (photosynthesis) into rebuilding the starch reserves in the rhizomes (think potatos) to prepare for next seasons sprouting and growth. Thus the lifecycle continues.
By cutting the plant back immediately after flowering you are asking the plant to make do at the start of next growing season with what starch reserves it has now. If it's a really well-fed healthy plant that's had heaps of light and warmth over summer it might not have much affect at all, but otherwise it may lack vigour at the start of next season, and at worse might kark it (but perhaps unlikely) through disease, parasites etc. (weak plants are vulnerable to these things).

it is interesting when you see video of commercial harvesting by machine or in the very old days they just cut the bines off at maybe 1-2 mtr above ground level so i am thinking most of the rhizome growth has already taken place.

when i talked about using gladwrap it was more just in sections, wrapped around the horizontal plant when it is still in the upright position as it wont cut into the plant and you will bined 30cm sections of the plant but not wrapping it tight just to hold it in place a little.

 

[Charst]

This is my first year of growing hops but i can tell you after watching every twine/string i put up snap under the weight of the hops and then me
re-stringing them i've still got a pretty decent crop. each bine has dropped to the ground once or twice and still flowering and surviving well. i think if you coiled it up in a large coil (100cm ish diameter) you'd be fine.