I planted 17 each of Brewers Gold, Chinook, Centennial, Golding,Liberty,Spalter Select, Mt. Hood, Sterling, and Santiam this year. All the newly planted hops look good and are coming up vigorously. My second year Nuggets all have at least 20 buds coming out. About 1/3rd of the newly planted hops have leaves on the buds and are about 2 to 3 inches tall.
We have a lot of issues in this area (eastern TN) with downy mildew , so I have allready started with liquid copper sulfate to help ward it off.
Since last years hop growing was my learning curve I have went with a more traditional looking trellis system. On the lower patch of Nuggets and Centennials I spaced the hops 6 ft across with 2 16' 4x4 posts concreted 3' into the ground centered between the hop rows. I am using 3/8" steel cable for the main post line and am going to string in an A pattern so that both rows are using the same central wire. I also staggered the plantings so that they dont grow into each other.
On the upper side with all the new plantings they went in at 5' apart each with thier own support system. Each row has an 8' untreated lanscape timber concreted 1.5' to 2' in the ground and to each of those I used 1/2" galvanized bolts (2 per pole) to bolt a 16' 4x4 directly to the 8' landscape timber. To each of the 16' 4x4's I used eye hooks for the cable attachments...again using 3/8" steel cable for the main wire and also the supporting anchor wire. Once harvest time comes around Ill be able to just unhook the anchor cables and unbolt the top bolt from the pole and lower to the desired harvesting height.
Last year was a horrible year here for growing hops and a much better year for growing downy mildew. Hopefully this year will give a bit better weather for growing hops. My Cascades didnt make it last year due to downy mildew...however the Nuggets exploded. I had my first year nuggets go 26'. They went up the 13' trellis and back down to the ground. So the nuggets really like it here in TN, and by the looks of it so do the Santiam, Centennial, and Spalt Select.
Hops coming up in Tennessee
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