Transplanting an established hops plant.

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Schmidtfaced

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Well it finally warmed up in Virginia and that means time to get out in the yard again. I moved into a 1800's home and discovered a hop plant growing on the side of the barn last summer. It's very well established and unfortunately last summer I didn't realize until august the it was there so it did not receive the care it needed, ie no water due to almost drought conditions. Still had a few cones and from the smell seemed to be an American c variety of some sort.
Ok my question is
How do I dig this bad boy up and divide and transplant without harming the plant?

My best friend is a horticulture major but has no experience with hop rhizomes, but he said I should be able to simply split the plant laterally across the heartiest part.
What to do
 
I usually pull my rhizomes up every 3 years to trim the root ball. I just cut it into a 1'x1' square and replant it. I have a small area to plant, so this cuts down on the massive amounts of growth that these things will produce after a few years. I typically give away the scraps of whatever I cut off and it works fine to start a new bine. All you need is a 6" root that has shoots coming out of it, and it will do fine.
 
Do you really want to move the whole crown ?Why not just harvest some rhizomes off it and transplant them.You have some kind old variety so let it live in its original place,just harvest some rootstock.I would be willing to trade a couple of rhizomes from my farm for the same.Go to my web site and there are some pictures of Rhizome harvesting both large scale and small.Cheers Glen
 
Ok I guess moving the whole deal is not a viable option. A inch or so under the soil I did see shoots with new growth coming out.
I would be willing to trade rhizomes, absolutely.
 
I forgot to mention that the reason I want to transplant is so that the plant has better exposure and I have better access by trellis. So if I were to dig the whole thing up what should I keep in mind.
 
One thing you have to take into consideration is the age of the crown. I've dug up 5 or 6 yr old crowns that were like trying to lift a 10 yr old oak tree. Just dig out about a foot or two from the center of the crown all the way around and you'll see what you have. You'll should see a bunch of rhizomes snaking out from the crown with little white buds on them. You can lop these off and use for additional plantings. As you dig down, if the crown is a vigorous variety, you may run into some pretty serious tap roots (think as big around as your wrist). If that's the case a spud bar is your friend. Don't worry about damaging the plant as if it's grown to that size it'll want to stick around for a while. Once you get it out of the ground you can trim it down to size and replant into a prepared area. Remember, when you buy rhizomes to grow new plants all you need is a little stick. You now have a great big crown with lots of carbohydrate reserves so it's gonna be pretty difficult to fail in this situation. Just make sure you have a couple beers handy! Have at it!
 
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