Ive tasted some laguanitas lucky 13 and really want to get my hands on some of these hop plants, where can i find them?
citra hops cutting?
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paulster2626
Well-Known Member
Behind a barbed-wire fence somewhere in Oregon, with guards and dogs and searchlights surrounding them. Oh, and they probably have a moat - full of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.
knuckleheadbrewing
Well-Known Member
From hopsdirect.com
Citra T90 Pellet Hops
NEW 2011 CROP
Acid Alpha 13.0%
Aroma Hop with a very fruity citrus, peach, apricot, passion fruit, grapefruit,
lime, melon, gooseberry, lychee fruit, pineapple, mango, & papaya, along
with other tropical fruits and aromas.
Typically brewing styles: in American Ales and IPA's
Substitutes: Simcoe, and other fruity, citrusy hops.
Thank you for your orders, Sold out until Fall 2012
Citra T90 Pellet Hops
NEW 2011 CROP
Acid Alpha 13.0%
Aroma Hop with a very fruity citrus, peach, apricot, passion fruit, grapefruit,
lime, melon, gooseberry, lychee fruit, pineapple, mango, & papaya, along
with other tropical fruits and aromas.
Typically brewing styles: in American Ales and IPA's
Substitutes: Simcoe, and other fruity, citrusy hops.
Thank you for your orders, Sold out until Fall 2012
Satisfaction
Well-Known Member
I've bought a pound of whole from hops direct and been saving the seeds that found their way in the package. Going to try for a couple female plants.
Pretty much the only way I know how to get a plant.
Pretty much the only way I know how to get a plant.
Firebat138
Well-Known Member
Seeds... ???? I think you bought something else....
Satisfaction
Well-Known Member
Firebat138 said:
Hah... It happens all the time with whole hop purchases. They are little tiny round balls, you have to really look for them.
Sure, those seeds *might be viable, but just what, exactly, will they turn into? It's a crap-shoot as to what you'll get.
Hops development takes years (decades) to produce acceptable/desirable results.
Organic material from fresh hops orders on the other hand...
Hops development takes years (decades) to produce acceptable/desirable results.
Organic material from fresh hops orders on the other hand...
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
Well, in all probability it would be the same plant, since theoretically they'd be surrounded by the same thing all over the place. Seeds likely formed from a hermie bit that poked out somewhere that nobody noticed. Probably from the same bine on the same plant.
It won't be a Citra thought. Whenever you grow from seed there is variation in the genetic code. All Citra plants are clones (from cutting). While your plants might not exactly be Citra, they will be something you can use to make beer and unique to the plants that you grow.
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
Yeah but wouldn't they be 99% Citra in all likelyhood?
If a single plant grows both male and female parts and pollenates itself (pretty common, actually), how would the seed have anything genetically different than the parent? (Serious question)
To my simple mind this seems no different than cutting a rhizome.
Maybe he'll end up with a better Citra - call it "Supra"!
"...99% Citra in all likelihood..."
Maybe, maybe not
chances are you won't get that far
Last year's wet hops (8#) I went through and shook out dozens & dozens of seeds, most of which were not mature enough to be viable
I went through four separate processes to get the best of them to germinate and each trial ended the same = failure
each individual attempt was with over a dozen seeds, using techniques I researched alot on
the only thing that worked (with a very high failure rate) was coaxing life out of any bine tips I found = one plant
this year, 12# mixed wet hops just for the chances to acquire viable plant matter, the hops will be dried & packaged along with my harvest = pricey (well, here in WI we actually say 'spendy')
...but where else you gonna get that 'special favorite' hop you love so much, to have and to hold until drink do you part?
Maybe, maybe not
chances are you won't get that far
Last year's wet hops (8#) I went through and shook out dozens & dozens of seeds, most of which were not mature enough to be viable
I went through four separate processes to get the best of them to germinate and each trial ended the same = failure
each individual attempt was with over a dozen seeds, using techniques I researched alot on
the only thing that worked (with a very high failure rate) was coaxing life out of any bine tips I found = one plant
this year, 12# mixed wet hops just for the chances to acquire viable plant matter, the hops will be dried & packaged along with my harvest = pricey (well, here in WI we actually say 'spendy')
...but where else you gonna get that 'special favorite' hop you love so much, to have and to hold until drink do you part?
It took me a while to convince myself that they wouldn't be the same. Im still not sure that this explanation I'm going to give but maybe its right. Hopefully a biology person can chime in. Im not sure if you remember back to biology but females have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y.
A female has two X chromosomes and they aren't identical lets call they X1 and X2. A male from the same plant has two that we will call X1 and Y. An egg will contain either X1 or X2 and only contains one of them. A sperm will have either X1 or Y. In the baby hop we can produce either X1X2, X1X1, X1Y or X2Y.
I'm not sure if this is right but that is how I'm thinking about it.
A female has two X chromosomes and they aren't identical lets call they X1 and X2. A male from the same plant has two that we will call X1 and Y. An egg will contain either X1 or X2 and only contains one of them. A sperm will have either X1 or Y. In the baby hop we can produce either X1X2, X1X1, X1Y or X2Y.
I'm not sure if this is right but that is how I'm thinking about it.
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
Those seeds are 99% likely to not be viable. When a plant goes hermaphrodite it is always later in the season, the seeds will be immature. Guaranteed. Maybe soon Citra rhizomes will be on the market, but I think for the time being they are having too much fun selling them to us for 25 bucks a pound.
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
My LHBS had them for $3.99 an ounce. Yeah, thanks bud, but no thanks.
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
paulster2626 said:
Or $63.84 a pound :cross:
I'd call it OG Kush if I grew out viable seeds, lol... i got em at a dead show, from some guy, it was dark and smoke filled concert, but the best came from the illusive seeds....
Alright, so who's gonna jump the fence??? Anyone?
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
That's exactly what they're looking for. We must go under it.
Or, just wait until the new "flavour of the week" hop variety comes out, and Citra will be forgotten and abundant. Also growers are increasing production of it anyway, they are not blind to the demand and want to supply the brewing world with all the Citra they can handle.
At least this is what I heard on a podcast somewhere.
SPLASTiK
Well-Known Member
Acres harvested 2011: 239
Acres strung for harvest 2012: 552
http://www.hopsteiner.com/pdf/USDA acreage June 2012.pdf
bigbeergeek
Well-Known Member
I think its 20 years on plants.
SPLASTiK
Well-Known Member
Patents and the like are basically meaningless in this case. Hop Breeding Company is a private company, and like say the recipe for Coca-Cola, they're under no obligation to share rhizomes or anything and can protect Citra as long as they want by growing it on only the farms they own/contract.
But, if you were able to legally obtain reproductive material (by buying wet hops) after the patent expired, you could grow and sell it legally. What year was the Citra patent filed?
Citra is aka HBC 394 from the Hop Breeding Company. The patent for HBC 394 was filed in 2010. It'll be a long time before this strain is freely available for growing...
Cheers!
Haha... until someone digs up some rhizomes and sells them to his bro or for a beer trade.
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
happyinsonoma said:
That's what I'm thinking. It's only a matter of time before someone lets out a sack full of rhizomes.
It is a little different, Coca-Cola's recipe is not patented because if it was it would have to be made public and expire in 50 years. I am sure a chemist could recreate the flavor but at this point no one has the brand name recognition to sell like coke.
The difference is that with a rhizome section, or a bine cutting, you are dealing with mitosis (regular cell division) which is where the plant just endlessly replicates the cells as it grows so they all have the same information.
With seed production however, you end up with something called meiosis (sexually reproductive cell division) where the chromosomes, the genetic information that determines how the hops taste and grow, are randomly assorted between. Also, remember that certain combinations of chromosomes are linked to other parts, complicating matter further. Since citra hops are diploid (2 copies of each chromosome), there can be a HUGE variation in the resulting offspring. Is it possible that one of the seeds will be close to Citra? Possibly, but the chances are slim to none.
Example:
Say for a certain gene (small part of a chromosome) there are only 2 different versions (in reality there are usually many more than 2), lets call them A and B. And lets use another gene with only 2 variations, lets call them E and F. One diplooid plant could have the chromosomes ABEF and if it was crossed with itself the offspring would be :
AAEF: 12.5%
ABEF: 25%
BBEF: 12.5%
AAEE: 6.25%
ABEE: 12.5%
BBEE: 6.25%
AAFF: 6.25%
ABFF: 12.5%
BBFF: 6.25%
The other problem with seed production is that you have many mutations and other changes that really make it challenging to reproduce a variety by seed. If you were able to get the original parents of the cross (which I am sure HBC is guarding closely), you might have better luck, but it would still be a multi-year process.
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
Wow very interesting. Thanks for the explanation.
Satisfaction
Well-Known Member
theredben said:
I planted tomato seeds this year and they taste amazing and like tomatoes.
Very much appreciate the science behind this, my background is in chemistry. In my world we have something called "significant digits". Is this a case were theory and reality may not cross?
Meaning... The impact on the environmental growing conditions may even outweigh the differences of seed propagation?
I have several colleagues that will argue the difference in the purity of the science, but in the real world it doesn't matter.
Satisfaction said:
I had tomato plants come up last year on their own from a crop two years ago. Taste was worlds apart, even though they looked the same. Something tells me they crossed with a other plant. Long story short - the tomato you get from seeds will always get you a tomato, but not necessarily the right tomato.
If it DOES work, you should probably come back and report an epic fail. Would love me a citra plant, but not if those oregon farmers know about it.
Satisfaction
Well-Known Member
brewguyver said:
Fixed the quote..
The great thing about this hobby, it's made for people who like to tinker. Never know how things are going to turn out. it may be better than that sliced bread.
Only time and effort will tell. If the seeds do not grow so be it.
Even with planting rhizomes your soil composition can change the flavor of your hops, so if you where to get a cutting to root it still would be slightly different from its parent plant. Just name it something different and sell away.
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
day_trippr said:Ever hear of a little company called "PepsiCo"?
I'm sure they could have cloned Coke, but instead they went one better...
Cheers!
Right, they took Coke and added more corn syrup. I wonder if I add twice as much if I can outsell both of them... Is the world ready for a 400 calorie can of soda? I think so.
