Is the season officially a bust?

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sarsnik

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I've got two cascade plants that are growing for their third season. I was expecting to finally have a good yield - the plants grew 15 feet high and seemed reasonably robust this year.

Disappointingly, they haven't bore any cones. Should I abandon all hope at this point and consider the season 'fruitless'?
 
I had a bad harvest on all of mine except northern brewer. Michigan weather wasn't too kind this year
 
I gave up on my hallertau, but had a great year with my columbus.
 
I can't speak for everyone, but it seems like the season here is still going. I have two first year plants and my cascade had a good year but I thought my nugget wasn't going to do anything. It had burrs for a good month with no cones forming. It just within the last 2 weeks has formed cones and they are starting to mature. My cascade is now forming new burrs so I may get another harvest from them before they die back. I'm not sure what varieties you're growing or how your weather had been but I wouldn't give up on them just yet.
 
This is my first year getting any cones as last year, the deer eat my plants. So I have a couple dozen cones already in MD, will I get more? How do I know when to start harvesting? I'm growing Newport hops if that matters. TIA
 
I'm also in PA, I wouldn't say a bust, but it's my first year. I just stripped the Centennial and got 10 wet ounces. The Fuggles will probably yield 6 wet, but I'm leaving for a week and I'm not sure what will be left when I get back. Took the most dry 3 ounces off so I have something at least. These are the first year whole crown. Now, my hot peppers and tomatoes on the other hand were very disappointing. This was a bad growing year all around.
 
First year plants for me in Illinois. Cascade, Columbus, and chinook. All of them did pretty decent and may get a second harvest off them. A few ounces of dried hops from each plant so far.
 
I've got five 7th year plants and 3 6th year plants. No hops from any of them this year, not even the Cascade.
 
I've got two cascade plants that are growing for their third season. I was expecting to finally have a good yield - the plants grew 15 feet high and seemed reasonably robust this year.

Disappointingly, they haven't bore any cones. Should I abandon all hope at this point and consider the season 'fruitless'?

Being that it's September 1, I would agree with your fruitless sentiment. Even if you have burrs at this point they won't mature properly this late in the season. I'm wondering what your growing situation is like? If they actually are Cascades, even if grown in buckets, they should have put something out by now. Did you get them from a reputable supplier? The 15 foot thing is what has me questioning whether or not they're Cascades and not some strange variety that someone just wanted to make a buck off of. Even if they were a rogue variety I would figure that a 3 year old plant that grew that much would show some signs of a harvest. I just noticed, Friday night after work at the beginning of a 3-day weekend and I'm thinking? Sorry, gotta switch modes and enjoy the evening. Keep us updated.
 
Cascade, Centennial, Glacier, Galena and Nugget did well this year but Golding and Tettnang got burned out with the heat we had most of the summer and are bust. Watered a lot for the past month, it's been real dry.. All 3rd year plants.
 
I have 20 plants Centennial and Cascade mixture. Probably 12 of them are 2nd year or older. I will be fortunate if I get a pound of yield from all of them. Very bad year here in NJ. None of my normal garden plants did well either.
 
This year seems to have been rough all over... Here in Colorado my grass is dead, my raspberries hardly produced anything, my strawberries didn't either, my first year Willamette's looked like they started out great then just disappeared, and my first year Tettnang's only grew about 6 or 7 feet tall and produced only two sorry looking cones. I didn't expect much from the first years, but I expected more than I got. I think the heat was just too much for most plants. It seems to have been abnormally hot all over the U.S. too.

Well, maybe next year will be better for growing stuff... :)
 
I just finished harvesting all my cones here in NJ. I got a whopping total of 8.5 oz from 20 plants.

I am going to scrap the whole "organic" thing with the hops. These plants need nutrition. Possibly some alpaca manure (available locally) will do the trick.
 
Being that it's September 1, I would agree with your fruitless sentiment. Even if you have burrs at this point they won't mature properly this late in the season. I'm wondering what your growing situation is like? If they actually are Cascades, even if grown in buckets, they should have put something out by now. Did you get them from a reputable supplier? The 15 foot thing is what has me questioning whether or not they're Cascades and not some strange variety that someone just wanted to make a buck off of. Even if they were a rogue variety I would figure that a 3 year old plant that grew that much would show some signs of a harvest. I just noticed, Friday night after work at the beginning of a 3-day weekend and I'm thinking? Sorry, gotta switch modes and enjoy the evening. Keep us updated.

I'm sure they're cascades - I've used the cones from these plants first year. I'm starting to think it's the heat that got to them, but it's still strange that I didn't even get whimpy cones.
 
Mine did pretty good in Ohio. (cascade)

Mine as well... Got hops off my Cascades, Columbus, EKG, Fuggle, and Nugget. All first year plants :). Cascade was by far the best. Filled up a 3 gallon bucket.

Lowlife, what part of Nati are you from?
 
Being that you've gotten some production out of them in prior years I'd say with some certainty that the weather this year probably had a lot to do with your problems this year. Lots of variables!
 
I am going to scrap the whole "organic" thing with the hops. These plants need nutrition. Possibly some alpaca manure (available locally) will do the trick.

Alpaca manure is not organic?
 
My first year cascade rhizomes are just about ready. Planted six late late in the season and only 2 produced cones, which is more than I expected first year. Only grew to about 10 ft. I think I would have had a better yield on a few on the others but I had a spider might problem that I let go way to long. Btw I am in the central valley of California, lots of heat, very dry.
 
This years haul:

8 0z cyrstal from 1st year - holy crap that thing puts out. Harvested 3 weeks ago, it its grown a smaller second crop with huge cones. Weird.

Centieniel, 2nd year, never grew over a foot tall

Northern Brewer, nver grew more than 5 inches tall

Glacier 8 oz from 2nd year plant, lots of small cones

Cascade, late planting 1st year just now has small cones

"Climax" 2 first year plants, lots of growth, 10' tall or so, no cones. Grasshoppers prefer these plants to all else.

All of these are planted in 20 gallon planters with miracle grow and mulch with automated watering setup.

The difference in output its very surprising, if not a bit frustrating.
 
3, 5 gallon buckets from 1 Cascade. Thought it was going to go south, but the vines rallied at the end!
 
logdrum - that's impressive! I'd like to see a pic of that Cascade plant, nice producer! My Cascade is in 3rd year and will be harvested this weekend. It looks real good, I got 18 oz out of it (dried) last season.. My 2 third year Centennials only produced 8.5 oz dried this season :(
 
There you go

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The first one shows the plant before harvest, I went up about 10' then over on 3 ropes about 16'
 
When I found out my wife was pregnant I decided it was a 'no garden' year so I could get the house ready. I set up my trellis so my hops had something to grow on, but I did no watering. With the drought, I'm glad I didn't because I would have wasted a lot of water and time. Having said that, my Chinook continues to be my Queen Hop, producing a full yield despite never being watered this year. I have a modest harvest from my Pride of Ringwood, which makes sense given it's an Australian hop. The rest of hops either didn't break ground or only got a few feet off the ground. Less work for me.

I might mix the Chinook and PoR into one pile and call 2012's harvest a one shot hop. Next year will be better, right?
 
My 4th year plants (or is it 5ht year??) didn't look healthy, but gave up a lot of flowers. I had a few that started turning brown due to me having to be away at prime harvest time, but all in all they still turned out pretty good. I have 3 "hills" and raised 6 ropes total from them. I got about 2 tall kitchen trash cans full of Cascade. I did not take a wet weight measurement, and am still vacuum sealing them. WAY more than I'll use in a year. I still have almost all from last year!

Even got a few Chinook from a first years plant even though I didn't run string up! They found a step ladder I left behind the garage and those flowers are HUGE compared to the Cascade!
 
My 4th year plants (or is it 5ht year??) didn't look healthy, but gave up a lot of flowers. I had a few that started turning brown due to me having to be away at prime harvest time, but all in all they still turned out pretty good. I have 3 "hills" and raised 6 ropes total from them. I got about 2 tall kitchen trash cans full of Cascade. I did not take a wet weight measurement, and am still vacuum sealing them. WAY more than I'll use in a year. I still have almost all from last year!

Even got a few Chinook from a first years plant even though I didn't run string up! They found a step ladder I left behind the garage and those flowers are HUGE compared to the Cascade!

Nice problem to have, get brewing!

P.S Feel free to send some my way!!
 
I had pretty decent harvests from Cascade, Chinook, Magnum, Newport, and CTZ. My Centennial, Nugget, Goldings and Fuggles didn't do squat, though. We had a very light late frost about 2 days after I had trimmed back a lot of the first growth/shoots, and it set some of the crowns back just enough that they didn't recover.

I watered a LOT this year (more than any year since I've been in my current home - 7 years). My last water bill was good proof of that.
 
New year, new season. So far the season is going great. From the second year rhizomes, the vines are 14 feet, from the first year vines, they range from 4 inches to 4 feet. The vines are Newport, Zeus, and Liberty.
 
Mine this year are going nuts... last year was the first year I planted them and I would say they grew 14' the first year. They are about 18' so far this year. Super excited!
 
I planted in April, two willamettes in 30 gallon containers. Both are now about 4'-5' tall, though they both only threw two bines each. I inoculated the buckets with mycogrow a while after I planted(<-awesome product) and have been giving it a few doses of fox farms 6-6-4 for the late-spring fertilization, though I don't want to over fertilize so I'll stop the regimen in a few days. We've had rather unseasonably hot dry weather here but the regular waterings and weeding/feeding have produced some great results! The pic is my ghetto setup from about a month ago. They're much more prolific now.

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