Is it possible to homegrow Irish moss? also, how to identify my Hops?

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aleiexjr

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Hello there, I've got a couple of questions here:

1) Recently a friend of mine gave me a few hop seeds, I'm planning on planting them and using them for my homebrew recipes, however he doesn't know what kind of hops this are, is there some way to identify my hops once they've grown? I'd really like to know if I'll be using Saaz, Goldings or something else :D


2)He also gave me a few irish moss seeds, is it possible to grow this seeds and use this irish moss for my beer or should It have to be processed?

Thank you very much in advance!
 
i didn't know you could buy Irish Moss seeds. Irish moss is a seaweed. so you would need to grow them in a salt water fish tank. which from what i hear is a pain for the novice to keep the salt content right.
 
oh, I see, so the one used for homebrewing is a seaweed (Chondrus crispus), the seeds I got are from a lawn weed also known as irish moss (Sagina subulata) so... useless for beer :( too bad they are called the same.

What about hops? is there some way to find out what kind of hops am I gonna be growing? :D
 
Growing hops from seeds might not work for you. You need a female plant (only), to produce hop cones. Not only would you not know the variety, but you wouldn't know if the resulting plants would be male or female.
 
Growing hops from seeds might not work for you. You need a female plant (only), to produce hop cones. Not only would you not know the variety, but you wouldn't know if the resulting plants would be male or female.

depending on how many seeds you have there is a 50/50 chance they will be female. i'm sure some will give you the cones you want.
 
depending on how many seeds you have there is a 50/50 chance they will be female. i'm sure some will give you the cones you want.


But.....you don't want ANY male plants. If the female plant becomes polinated, the hop cones won't form correctly, but will instead produce seed. That would ruin the hops for brewing.

The only way to know which is which would be to grow them. Then cull the male plants.
 
Your gonna waste a lot of time when you could just buy rhizomes for reasonably cheap and be sure of what your getting. Just my opinion though, good luck hope ya get lucky and grow all female plants :)
 
Hops do not breed true. Growing hops from seed is a waste of time, unless you are willing to take a 1:1000 chance of getting something worthwhile.
 
If the hop seeds came from a lawn place like the irish moss seeds, then they're probably from ornamental hops people grow to make wreaths with rather than a variety of brewing hops.
 
Wow, thanks a lot for your insight guys, unfortunately they dont mail rhizomes to my area, so I was "hoping" to be able to be able to grow them from seeds, but I think ChshreCat may be right and this could be ornamental hops :( too bad
 
Wow, thanks a lot for your insight guys, unfortunately they dont mail rhizomes to my area, so I was "hoping" to be able to be able to grow them from seeds, but I think ChshreCat may be right and this could be ornamental hops :( too bad
you could probably find someone on this very board to grab some rhizomes and mail them to you in a very well wrapped package. you really only need one to get started.
 
of course i'm going to plant them, at least i could get a green green fence :D

I never thought of asking for rhizomes, but it could work, the only thing is that I live in Mexico, so there may be legal issues, I'd have to do some research about it :p
 
of course i'm going to plant them, at least i could get a green green fence :D

I never thought of asking for rhizomes, but it could work, the only thing is that I live in Mexico, so there may be legal issues, I'd have to do some research about it :p

You, or maybe it is the sender, would need proper phytosanitary certificate (I think that's right) to get plants imported/exported and I think that is a lot of paperwork, but I haven't looked into it too much.

Be careful planting hop seeds and be sure to get rid of any male plants when you can determine what is what. As yooper said earlier if any male hop plants are around the pollen will ruin your hop cones from your female rhizomes once you get them.
 
freshops.com can ship hop rhizomes internationally, and they are going to ask you a $15.00 to obtain phytosanitary certificate so they can send the rhizomes internationally. freshops.com has the permission to ship locally and internationally.
 
The last issue, I suspect is growing conditions -- from what I know of hop growing, you will have a difficult time down in the southern latitudes of Mexico getting hops to grow well and they will likely not come back the second year.
 
mkling has a point, hops trigger flower formation on length of day changes and do best between 35 and 55 degrees latitude. Day length is also important for yield.

Many other countries in lower latitudes, including Mexico, Kenya and Burma, to name only a few, have attempted to grow hops, generally without success. In some cases, these counties have experimented with extending day-length with artificial lightning, but this has usually proven too costly. USDA ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository,

Not saying you can't grow enough for your own use. Maybe you could plant a few of the seeds and see how they do. If they grow well enough, then buy some rhizomes.
 
Well, I live in a place with relatively cool climate for mexican average, so I thought it could be worth to give it a shot, but if daylenght is a crucial factor there may be some trouble. Perhaps my best chance would be to do as david 42 says and try with seeds first and if I succeed, then go for the rhizomes. I don't need to have a high production though, for I make around 5 gal every two months or so.

Anyway, I also love gardening and harvesting my own food so, I'll try this seeds :D after all, I already have them!

Another thing that I could do is to try to emulate the ideal conditions, like temperature, substrate and nutrients the best I can, just for the sake of it.

What do you think guys?
 
I would spring for the rhizomes from fresh hops and give it a go. What's the worse that could happen, total failure and the lose of 30 bucks or so?

I think you will be successful just not to the same extent as some one growing in the correct latitude. From what I understand, a plant related to hops that has the same daylight requirements is grown extensively in your neck of the woods.
 
I think you will be successful just not to the same extent as some one growing in the correct latitude. From what I understand, a plant related to hops that has the same daylight requirements is grown extensively in your neck of the woods.

:p certainly indeed, so... there's still hope
 
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