Was 90% Sure... Now 50%

Aaarrgghhh!

Planted 2 cascade and 2 nugget bines earlier this year, planted them in 2 planters on either side of a tree. (similar light and soil)

After months of staring at them, I have nice cones and am awaiting them to be ready to harvest.

So.... I am now not sure which are which. (I feel like such an idiot posting this, as I knew this was going to be an issue so I had a great logical reason as to why I planted in a specific order...... which I since have forgotten.)

I think I have the following options...

1) post photos of cones and leaves and see what you think.
2) make a tea and trust the more bitter is nugget
3) smell and see if I can tell (citris/herbal from herbal)

The one I thought was nugget has cones 2x the size of the cascade and has 2x the number of cones. I, from my reading, thought it should be the other way around.

Any suggestions? Think the experts can tell them apart from photos of leaves and cones? If so, I'll post some tonight.

Thanks!

Found this online.... Cascade left / Nugget right. Think this is a representative enough photo to ID or is this just 2 random samples that could look like anything?

I found these pictures. All though my Cascade don't look like that.

http://oregonhops.org/varieties.html

I had a similar problem and I think you'll find that visual analysis of the plant/cones is not that much help. However the smell/aroma and taste of the two hop varieties should be very different and let you determine which is which easily enough.

I learned to label mine will with permanent (aluminum) labels.

I have some first year cascade, nugget, and centenniel plants. The mature cascade cones are much longer and a bit narrower, while the nugget and centennial are shorter and fatter. The cascade pic in uechikid's link is what my most mature cones look like.

OK think I figured it out... here are my photos.

Nugget:
- shorter, fatter cone
- more shape to leaf



Cascade:
- longer cone
- round to slightly shaped leaf



And I think this jives with my memory....

Think I have about 5x more Nugget than Cascade. The Nugget seemed to grow in clusters of 3-5 cones and the Cascade grew 1 to a sidearm (ggrrrrrrr)

This looks right to me. You still should probably do a hop tea. Nugget should be more bitter indeed.

I was also going to suggest a hop tea, my Chinook are MUCH different from my Cascade,

Looks about right to me.

I'll take a few pics of my cascade and nugget in the morning so you can compare. Both of mine are growing side each in the garden.

I think you are right on. I just picked my cascade, and they are almost identical to yours. My nugget are not ready yet, but they do have a slightly more round shape.

Here are a couple of pictures to compare.

Cascades



Nugget



Hope this helps

Cheers

In my opinion you will never figure it out by trying to look at cones etc. One plant can have multiple shape cones. My cascade has short fat cones, long skinny cones, and long fat cones all on one bine.