What disease is this?

Hello guys!
I hope you can help me find out what disease are my hop plants suffering from.
I have a Northern Brewer that has grown only about 2.5 meters(you can see it in the attached pictures), and a Saaz and a Hallertauer that i have trimmed down because they wouldn't grow bigger than ~1 meter (now i'm sorry i didn't took pictures before cuting them down, to be sure that they had the same problem...).
I have also one Cascade that has grown bigger than the trelis (picture attached), with no sign of disease, despite that all the plants ar relatively close to each other.
Keep in mind that all 4 plant are in their first year (planted in september from store bought little plants).

Feline aids

I'm sorry I have never grown hops so this is purely a guess but it looks like some sort of white powdery mold. I've seen this on cucumbers before especially.

I use a chemical by Bonide called Captan, it is a cheap and effective fungicide. Mix as directed and spray directly onto the leaves, it can also be mixed or added to soil to control damping off.

I am not sure if it's a mold because, as you can see, the leaf turn yellowish befeore any kind of mold spots would appear. The bigger leaf that have turned brown are brittle, as if they were dry.
Also, i don't seem to get mold on my fingers, but i'm not sure that the white powdery mold should be visible with the bare eye.

Any way, i will look for a fungicide, i don't live in USA so probably i can't find Captan, but something similar should work just fine.

Thank you for your response and forgive me for my bad english

Your new leaves are terribly yellow. Are you sure that you don't have a nutrient deficiency? This can be caused by an actual lack of nutrients or by soil pH outside the ideal range.

I've started fertilize them in june (i know, it was a little late ) with 15-15-15 granulated fertilizer, but my Cascade plant is very good looking, dark green, and full of cones. Shouldn't all the plants look the same if it was a nutrient deficiency, keeping in mind that they are planted in the same garden?
Sadly i don't know the pH of the soil and, for now, i don't have a pH meter or something similar to measure it.
I have read that wood ash can help if you have nutrient-poor soil, i will try that to.

Looks like mold to me. Mix up some baking soda, vegetable oil, and water and spray at dusk. Wont hurt anything if it's not mold. I sprayed mine and it fixed the problem right up. As someone mentioned earlier it does appear that they have some nutritional deficiencies.

I will do that. I have also some CuSO4, wich is a very good fungicide, a might use it.
About the fertilizing, how often should i do it? As i said i have some 15-15-15 NPK granulated fertilizer...and how much to use per plant?

Sorry for the noobie questions

15-15-15 should work, when they are still growing they really need a lot of Nitrogen though(the first number).

The Miracle grow i used was 24-8-16.

For that i mixed a gallon of water with a half Tbsp (half of their recommended dosage) and watered each plant with that once a week for two weeks they came back and took off.

You can make effective fungicides at home, they're ridiculously priced if you buy them at the store. I wouldn't fertilize too much, only thing I've done is sprayed miracle grow once this year. I'd say do it once and see how they react, you have to let them grow. If you spray anything I'd make sure to do it later in the afternoon to prevent burn.

Thank you guys! I will try your methods and wait to see the results.

Any other advice is well appreciated.

I've never grown hops either, but I always see reference to resistance or susceptibility to "downy mildew" and "powdery mildew" in a lot of hops descriptions. I googled those and it looks somewhat similar to your pictures.

peterj said:

I've never grown hops either, but I always see reference to resistance or susceptibility to "downy mildew" and "powdery mildew" in a lot of hops descriptions. I googled those and it looks somewhat similar to your pictures.

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I was pretty sure hops could be effected by it, as many garden plants are. I've been gardening for 20 years and have seen it many times.

The leaves that are turning yellow, may not be receiving as much sunlight as the others, and if they are staying wet more could definitely set things up for mold.

For me I prefer a liquid fertilizer, like a 5-10-5. I mix full strength and give it to the plants early on, (after they have true leaves), and again later before they start to produce, then give them another small shot somewhere before the end. There are exceptions to my rule of thumb, but this isn't a gardening forum so I won't bore anyone with my "country boy wisdom".

Wood ashes can be very caustic, (especially hardwood), and because of this they can raise the soil pH pretty quick. A low tech way to check your soil pH is to mix 50 grams of water with 50 grams of soil, then use a strip or meter directly into the soil. You'll have to research what pH hops like, but I'd be willing to bet it's in the 6-7 range. Since the other plant is growing fine, my guess is your soil isn't too bad off, if at all.

If all else fails sometimes adding a micro nutrient may help. These can add calcium, magnesium, selenium etc etc.

Water as the sun goes down and give them plenty of it this time of year!

I've just finished to spray them with fungicide. I hope i will see some improvement.
Is it possible to be a virus? I bought the plants from an well known seller from Germany, i don't think that they sell ill plants, but who can know for sure...

I ordered some pH strips. I just hope that they will arrive before i live the country, to test the soil.

definitely powdery mildew, great lakes hops recommends Quintec.

From their facebook feed:

Hop grower notes: July 30. Are you watching this weeks weather forecast?? The cooler fall-type weather pattern, increasing rainfall and lower temperatures are increasingly favorable for both downy and powdery mildews to develop. Scout lower leaves and shoots of the hop bines for early signs of disease development. Apply a good protectant fungicide. Quintec is effective if your cones are forming. Some other protectant type fungicides labelled for hops are Kocide (copper), Phostrol, Tanos, Stature, Flint/Tilt.

As others have said, it looks like powdery mildew, which is used to describe a number of fungal spores. I avoid spraying fungicides at home; raising the pH by spraying with baking soda mixed with water (maybe 1/4 cup per quart of water?) might help.

Shouldn't the powdery mildew be ... well... powdery? I thought that the powder,or mold, should come off if you shake the leaf.
I've used a copper fungicide last evening.

A couple things about the situation. First off, the bleached bands on the lower older leaves is not powdery mildew http://www.uvm.edu/extension/cropsoil/wp-content/uploads/PowderyMildew.pdf but just a weathering type of phenomenon that occurs on the older leaves and has done so on mine for the last 25 or so years that I've been playing with hops. Nothing to worry about.

What freaks me out is that there's a relatively healthy plant growing very close to the problem plant. The problem plant looks to be deficient in one or more nutrients (macro or micro). These types of soil problems are difficult to call because soil chemistry is very complex. What it looks like is that for one reason or another, something created pocket of very poor soil. That spot could have been a burn pit at one time, there may be a tree stump buried on that exact spot or any number of things.

I would consider pulling some samples with a soil probe and first check the ph. If the ph is out of whack, certain nutrients can be locked up and become unavailable to the plant and create problems like you've shown. Sorry for being so vague but there's a bunch of crazy things that go on underground that we can't see which dictate what we do see above ground. Worse case scenario would be to dig the plant up this Fall and move it to a different location. Good luck.

Thank you!
I'm still waiting for my pH strips to arrive, but i've found on a site a method to tell if your soil is acidic or alkaline. To test if it is acidic you must take some soil, add some distilled water and some baking soda, if it fizz it means that your soil is acidic.
To test the alkalinity you take some soil and add vinegar on it, again, if it fizz your soil is alkaline. Obviously, if it dosen't do anything it means that the pH is neutral.
It looks like my soil is alkaline, but as B-Hoppy said i don't think that this pH in constant in all the garden.
What nutrients would an alkaline soil lock in?

Here is one link of many: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/222.html. If you do a search for "nutrient availability pH", many many more will come up.

If your soil is alkaline, then you should expect nutrient deficiencies until you amend the soil. Iron, in particular can become limiting in alkaline soils and may account for the yellowing of your new growth. As you can tell from the chart I posted above, or the one in B-Hoppy's link, slightly acidic soils tend to offer the ideal balance of nutrients for most plant species. Bear in mind when reading these charts that more is not necessarily better for particular nutrients, which can cause toxicity at high levels (or at the very least, off-flavors in your crop).

When and if you do begin to amend your soil, please do so slowly and remember that pH is a logarithmic scale (each point is a 10-fold increase from the one below). Know that fertilizers (particularly the soluble kind) will tend to acidify the soil over time.

Oh, and I will add another voice saying that the necrotic lesions you see on the older leaves are almost certainly not the result of mildew, powdery or otherwise. I would bet that they are the result of the plant cannibalizing itself for nutrients to feed those starving young leaves.

So you don't recommed using sulfur or aluminium sulfate to lower the pH? Or the processes triggered by sulfur ar slow enough to be sure i won't mess my soil with it?

Today i received the pH strips that i ordered. I will test the soil to know exactly the pH. I'm thinking to test the water too, i have a hunch that the water might be rich in calcium, or lime, and could be the reason that my soil is so alkaline...

bionut said:

So you don't recommed using sulfur or aluminium sulfate to lower the pH? Or the processes triggered by sulfur ar slow enough to be sure i won't mess my soil with it?

Today i received the pH strips that i ordered. I will test the soil to know exactly the pH. I'm thinking to test the water too, i have a hunch that the water might be rich in calcium, or lime, and could be the reason that my soil is so alkaline...

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Test it first and see what your pH is. For this season, I might just use some soluble acid-forming fertilizer as you water. For next season, I'd probably dig the rhizomes and work the amendments in (sulfur or ammonium sulfate) during the off-season to give them time to do their thing. Test as you go. You can also add organic matter with lower pH, like peat moss, and mulch with lower pH materials like pine straw or other coniferous mulch that will break down over time and help offset the calcium that is coming in with your water.

If I add the amendments gradually, in small quantities, i'll still have to dig the rhizomes?
Coniferous sawdust will work? I also can mulch with oak leaves, which i think that are acidic.
How i know what fertilizer is acidic forming?

Later edit: I've checked the pH, is 7.5, almost 8.

Did you use distilled water when you checked it, I forgot to mention that in my post.

I didn't have distilled water. I've used spring water, with a 7.5 ph. I don't know how much this affected my result :|

bionut said:

If I add the amendments gradually, in small quantities, i'll still have to dig the rhizomes?
Coniferous sawdust will work? I also can mulch with oak leaves, which i think that are acidic.
How i know what fertilizer is acidic forming?

Later edit: I've checked the pH, is 7.5, almost 8.

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Compost any sawdust (or other organic matter) that you add, or else the microbes will consume massive amounts of nitrogen while breaking it down and your plants will suffer for it. Composting takes a while, so it may be better if you can get some that is already composted.

I recommended digging the rhizomes in order to have better access to the soil for mixing in the amendments, if you'd rather not, then just do the best you can, working around the plants to mix them in.

Some soluble fertilizers like MirAcid (by Miracle Gro) say "acid-forming" on the box. Azaleas and rhododendrons prefer acid conditions, so most fertilizers that are meant for them are acid-forming. Otherwise, read the label - look for those with higher concentrations of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate.

OK, i thought that the amendmenst will harm the plants if i leave them in the ground while applying the amendments.
I will search for some acid forming fertilizers also.
Thanks!

Hi!
Before i left the country in August i have cut the plants at ground level. Now they look healthier. I will see next year how they will turn out.

Perfect, keep us posted.

Ooh, and i must point out that i harvested 150 grams of cones from my Cascade

Powdery Mildew

The plants started to sprout and they look very good. Will see after they'll grow bigger if will get sick again or not. Anyway, i will do a better job when
i fertilizeand irrigate them.

+1 to powdery mildew. A much better problem to have than the downy version which can infect plants systemically- you would need to pull it.

Also as others have said it looks like the plant is deficient. If you can fix that she'll be able to fend of diseases better.