85 year old hop plant...
 

hello everyone! a family member of mine has a hop plant that has been growing on their farm since it was planted in 1926. i've been home brewing for about five years and just learned of this plant recently. we would like to build a trellis or some sort of structure to help it grow bigger and produce more hops. would like to get some advice from people who know what they are doing... thanks!

Pics or GTFO! ;)

Before building my very basic and free trellis, I looked up "hop trellis" on google image and got some great ideas (as did I from this site and youtube). You want to give the bines something to climb and cut back some shoots in the spring (though for an 85 y.o. plant, doing so may not even be necessary). Feed it regularly and it will be bountiful.

+1. Pic or GTFO.

How do they know when it was planted. A 20-yr-old that planted it would be 105 yrs old right now.

I bet you would need an excavator to get the root bulb out! haha

Where is it growing? If it's on the side of a barn, just run twine up the entire side of the bar and let it go (up). Should be incredible.

I would love for you to find out what variety this hop is (or what modern variety it most closely resembles).

With all of Deschutes' Larry Sidor's talk about how modern Cascade plants are not "true Cascade" just compared to thirty years ago... I wonder if this hop crown might yield hop flavors that have gone untasted for decades.

There's lots of great advice on this forum about hop growing, I'd suggest building something where you can cut the lines down at harvest, just like the pros do.

Standing by for photographs...

Agreed. I'm curious as to where this is on your property and what it looks like

pics coming soon
 

i'll try to get some pics up here soon. its on my 2nd cousin's father's land, and the hop plant was planted by his grandfather (this is how we know what year it was planted) for the past five or six years, he's entered some of the hops into the local fair and they've taken first place every year. i'm excited to start using these hops :-)