Growing Hops From Seed?

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TheBreweryUnderground

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While brewing a witte last year with some whole hops (tett) I noticed a fair amount of seeds, normally I use pellets so I'm not sure if this is normal. My main question is if the seeds are viable after processing and if anyone has tried growing from them. I realize you could get male and female plants, but it would be worth it for certain varieties that are difficult to get. I have a pound of whole Simcoe on the way and some plans to propagate if it's possible. Also I don't care about the legality so there's no use in discussing that.
 
after the kilning of the hops, i doubt it's much use to try. although, i'm no expert :).
 
People seem very down on seeds, but if you know what strain the seed is and how to tell the difference between the males and females (and pull those pesky males before they knock your girls up!), then I don't see why it would be a problem. Let us know how it goes!
 
What would the legalities be? You have seeds and you are growing plants. People grow plants from seeds all the time. Shoot I let my garden go to seed last year. and harvested a bunch. I would give it a try. Planet the seeds in some paper cups with some good potting soil and place in a bright sunny place. water frequently and give it a shot. All they did to the hops is dry them slowly. it is not like they baked them at high temps. I would think they should be viable. That is how I got my garden going last year and will be dong the same thing here in the week or so.
 
Snccoulter - the legalities are because Simcoe is a proprietary variety, meaning some company owns it until it is made public. Have you grown hops from seed? Also commercial growers heat the hops up a bit to dry quicker, but I'm not sure if these temperatures kill the seeds. It's not supposed to get above 140 degrees but I'm not certain what it would be like. These seeds would be coming from a pack of dried hops for brewing purposes, not really growing.
 
ASunlimeDay - I'm not sure if it would be that much of a problem having male plants, they help the females produce larger cones with the downside of also getting seeds but these could be strained out. As long as they're not taking up too much garden space.
 
Hey they sold him the seeds right. As long as he is not selling them who cares he bought them fare and square.
Cheers:D
 
Seeds are a crap shoot. Some strong, some weak. Cloning is pretty much guaranteeing good genes. If you do grow from seeds and get a strong plant, clone it.:mug:
 
ASunlimeDay - I'm not sure if it would be that much of a problem having male plants, they help the females produce larger cones with the downside of also getting seeds but these could be strained out. As long as they're not taking up too much garden space.

i'm pretty sure that if the females go into seed then they quite producing lupulin and focus on seed production so that would drop the alpha acids way down and wouldn't give you much in the way of bitterness.
 
Even if the seeds are viable, which is questionable, the genetics will likely not be true to the mother plant. Hop yards aren't going to keep male plants near their harvest fields, so the pollen likely came from some other variety that may have hermied at some point during the season. If the plants did grow, and if they were female, you'll likely have some new genetic combination hop that may or may not be good for brewing. You really are not going to have any idea what you have, but if you want to spend a couple years growing a plant that may or may not be worth brewing with, knock yourself out. You might get lucky and have something good.

Growing seeds from a bag of Simcoe leaf hops is not going to give you Simcoe. The only way to get Simcoe would be from a rhizome, cutting or some other way of cloning. Unfortunately due to patents on the plant it's not possible to get Simcoe genetics unless you can climb a fence and run really fast.
 
I can do that, you have any addresses?

What would you get growing from Simcoe seeds? Anything at least Simcoe like?

You'll probably have to head to the Pacific NW, find a hopyard with Simcoe growing, climb a fence, take a cutting, and run like h*ll (not that I'm condoning theft of patented genetics, but I wouldn't mind getting my hand on some Simcoe and Amarillo genetics).

If there were seeds in the Simcoe bag, there's no way of telling what the plant was crossed with. If you grew out a 100 of them (if they grow at all), you might be able to find a few with Simcoe characteristics, but I doubt if you have the time, space or patience to do it. Hop breeders grow out thousands of plants, looking for specific traits in plants and spend a decade thinning out plants that don't meet their criteria. After 10 years they may have one plant that is a winner, and they may call it Simcoe. Every Simcoe hop plant that goes out to hop yards is an exact clone of that one plant. Growing from seeds puts you back at square one.

Edit: Again, it may be fun experiment to try and don't want to stop you from trying, I just wouldn't get your hopes up to grow a Simcoe plant.
 
i'm pretty sure that if the females go into seed then they quite producing lupulin and focus on seed production so that would drop the alpha acids way down and wouldn't give you much in the way of bitterness.

Even if the seeds are viable, which is questionable, the genetics will likely not be true to the mother plant. Hop yards aren't going to keep male plants near their harvest fields, so the pollen likely came from some other variety that may have hermied at some point during the season. If the plants did grow, and if they were female, you'll likely have some new genetic combination hop that may or may not be good for brewing. You really are not going to have any idea what you have, but if you want to spend a couple years growing a plant that may or may not be worth brewing with, knock yourself out. You might get lucky and have something good.

Growing seeds from a bag of Simcoe leaf hops is not going to give you Simcoe. The only way to get Simcoe would be from a rhizome, cutting or some other way of cloning. Unfortunately due to patents on the plant it's not possible to get Simcoe genetics unless you can climb a fence and run really fast.

Right- as they said.
 
I found a couple .25 in dia, 2.5 in twigs in a bag of leaf hops. I soaked them in water for 3 hours, dipped them in root hormones, and planted them in pots. SWMBO says no way they will grow, but what have I got to loose. If I see anything green I will let you know. If not I will just sheepishly slink away.
 
I've done some crossbreeding and seed planting. In what I've read, there are places where owning a male vine is illegal, or they at least need to be registered. One male near a commercial hop yard can fill all those nice cones with useless seeds. When I sprout, I freeze the seeds for a couple weeks first. First soak a couple days and the good ones will sink. Then I put them in a damp paper towel in a plastic bag and fridge for 1 day and freeze. After the freeze, 1 day in the fridge and then warm them and hope they sprout. I leave the ziplock bag open a bit but keep the paper damp. 70-75 degrees. Usually get most of my crossbreeds to sprout this way. I've also gotten good sprouting in the fridge, but takes longer. Transitioning to the yard is another story, but could be the odd genetics.
 
Denverhoss - have you had any success cross breeding?

Anybody else have the Hop Breeding Company's address? Also should I use a ski mask or panty hose? (note: I have a large beard)

I'm totally kidding! Not serious at all...
 
About 16-17 years ago I had a volunteer come up in my compost pile. Must have been a seed from hops used in a late addition to have survived the boil (most likely an aroma addition). The second year, it showed that it was a female so I kept it against my better judgement. It's not a big producer but has a very unique aroma/flavor profile - 'heavy/thick' peach syrup. Now that I've had a chance to use Citra I see some similarities. Just keeping it around for sentimental reasons. All the other seedlings get uprooted by the end of the season - no time for that kinda stuff any more. Hop on y'all!
 
Denverhoss - have you had any success cross breeding?

Still a work in progress. I've gotten the hang now of finding the male flowers at the right maturity to bring some home and apply to my Cascade and Centennial female vines. I've gotten some seeds from both crosses to sprout, but the Cascade cross has never done well and I haven't been able to transition one to dirt yet (did grow some in hydro). Last year it didn't even want to produce seeds, but it's in a spot that is too shady anyway. I do have a Centennial/Humulus Lupulus Neomexicanus (prob) cross that I planted in the yard late last season. It was too late to have it flower. A couple weeks ago it started sprouting and has good size 2nd year sprouts so I expect good growth. (First year from seed can be thread thin bines). What I don't know is if it will be male, female, or other. And even if it is female, the cones might be cr*p. But at least I've had fun playing Dr. Hopenstein. I'll keep working on the Cascade cross too.

Hoss
 
Last fall I tried my hand at getting certain 'citrusy' hop seeds to sprout. The seeds I used were from some wet hops (I got from a local brewery) and I did a similar process as the guy above: freezing, soaking in water, and then in the fridge for a while before I put them in planters. I got around about 1/3 of the seeds to sprout after a few months and they were doing good until they got some mold type thing on them and they all died. I've had no luck using dried hops.

Also, I was told that it is not that uncommon to leave a male plant among the females in the field as they increase the size of the cones and therefore more $$$ per acre. This year all of my hopsdirect Amarillo, Simcoe, and Citra have seeds in them. Lots of seeds.
 
bierhaus15 said:
Last fall I tried my hand at getting certain 'citrusy' hop seeds to sprout. The seeds I used were from some wet hops (I got from a local brewery) and I did a similar process as the guy above: freezing, soaking in water, and then in the fridge for a while before I put them in planters. I got around about 1/3 of the seeds to sprout after a few months and they were doing good until they got some mold type thing on them and they all died. I've had no luck using dried hops.

Also, I was told that it is not that uncommon to leave a male plant among the females in the field as they increase the size of the cones and therefore more $$$ per acre. This year all of my hopsdirect Amarillo, Simcoe, and Citra have seeds in them. Lots of seeds.

Ive never seen one seed. If I ever get "Lots of seeds" I'm complaining and getting some free ****. Specially on Simcoe and Citra. All mine come from hopunion. Anybody else getting lots of seeds from hops direct?

To the op: like everyone else said, worth a try. IMO.
 
I found a couple .25 in dia, 2.5 in twigs in a bag of leaf hops. I soaked them in water for 3 hours, dipped them in root hormones, and planted them in pots. SWMBO says no way they will grow, but what have I got to loose. If I see anything green I will let you know. If not I will just sheepishly slink away.

Bigcorona,

Did it grow?
 
Interested to find out if anyone has gotten this to work, and if so how the hops turned out? Im interested in getting some Amarillo hops growing and wonder if this might be a possible way?
 
About 16-17 years ago I had a volunteer come up in my compost pile. Must have been a seed from hops used in a late addition to have survived the boil (most likely an aroma addition). The second year, it showed that it was a female so I kept it against my better judgement. It's not a big producer but has a very unique aroma/flavor profile - 'heavy/thick' peach syrup. Now that I've had a chance to use Citra I see some similarities. Just keeping it around for sentimental reasons. All the other seedlings get uprooted by the end of the season - no time for that kinda stuff any more. Hop on y'all!

You wanna send me a clipping of the rhizome? I'd love to try it I'd send you the $5 for the rhizome and cover shipping if not that's cool I thought I'd ask.
 
Interested to find out if anyone has gotten this to work, and if so how the hops turned out? Im interested in getting some Amarillo hops growing and wonder if this might be a possible way?

If you read the thread, they explain why this won't give you Amarillo hops, although you might get the hop plant to grow from the thread.

The bottom line is, the people who own proprietary strains like Simcoe and Amarillo sure as hell have a way to protect their property.
 
If you read the thread, they explain why this won't give you Amarillo hops, although you might get the hop plant to grow from the thread.

The bottom line is, the people who own proprietary strains like Simcoe and Amarillo sure as hell have a way to protect their property.

I did read it! I've been scouring the internet to try and fin someone that had some success with it - even a offspring Amarillo plant is better than no Amarillo plant! It might have some of the flavors I like! :)
 
About 16-17 years ago I had a volunteer come up in my compost pile. Must have been a seed from hops used in a late addition to have survived the boil (most likely an aroma addition). The second year, it showed that it was a female so I kept it against my better judgement. It's not a big producer but has a very unique aroma/flavor profile - 'heavy/thick' peach syrup. Now that I've had a chance to use Citra I see some similarities. Just keeping it around for sentimental reasons. All the other seedlings get uprooted by the end of the season - no time for that kinda stuff any more. Hop on y'all!

You wanna send me a clipping of the rhizome? I'd love to try it I'd send you the $5 for the rhizome and cover shipping if not that's cool I thought I'd ask.

Yeah i'd also like one of those if you have them.

I'd also take some random seeds if anyone has them. Just something to try and mess around with breeding
 
Well I have a couple rhizomes planted this year but I'm thinking if they happen to come to seed or if I find antpy seeds in any packages or anyone just wants to send off a bunch of random seeds I will go around planting hops all around town (open properties, friends properties, family members properties etc.) Not just looking for disease sustainability and flavor but even more so something that holds up well in my neck of the woods I am kind of considering trying to order some Australian type hops rhizomes but I also figure spreading seedkings all over then killing anything I find undesirable after the season is over I mean I could go from having two plants I really have to keep well to having as many as I can get to sprout and hold up in the ground just growing in various places that I have permission to do so on more or less looking to find a plant that can hold up to the mobile weather its really rainy it gets super hot and all I mean once that part is steadied I could worry a few years over flavor and such I am a man of science after all
 
BrewingChemist said:
... even a offspring Amarillo plant is better than no Amarillo plant!

Not necessarily... As others have mentioned, hops are extremely heterozygous - meaning that the offspring are, almost always, quite different than their parents.

I have sprouted over 500 seeds so far looking for new flavors. Were now down to the flavor testing the final few dozen. Very interesting results, but I can confirm, the offspring rarely have a flavor similar to their parents.

A surprising number actually taste quite bad. Hops seem to naturally have a garlic/onion flavor, but growers simply throw out the +50% with that profile.

As another example, this cross has a unique profile including vanilla, oak, and caramel. It tastes nothing like its parents: Chinook and Cascade.

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Well, an offspring Amarillo plant is better than no plant at all, I guess.

Hop cultivars are so heterozygous, and aroma profile is so unpredictable, that if one wants to breed, it's probably best to look at traits like disease resistance when choosing breeding stock rather than the desired aroma profile.
 
Well, an offspring Amarillo plant is better than no plant at all, I guess.

Hop cultivars are so heterozygous, and aroma profile is so unpredictable, that if one wants to breed, it's probably best to look at traits like disease resistance when choosing breeding stock rather than the desired aroma profile.

It sounds like you're saying that disease resistance is more likely to be passed on to the kids than the aroma (essential oil package). Have you found information as to what traits have the highest heritability or is this just speculation?
 
Disease resistance can be relatively easy to select for, depending on which disease you're working with.
 
It sounds like you're saying that disease resistance is more likely to be passed on to the kids than the aroma (essential oil package). Have you found information as to what traits have the highest heritability or is this just speculation?

At this point, more of an educated guess, based around how these things tend to work and input from others who work in the field. I'd take PapaBearHay's word for it.

Aroma is a complex interaction between a very large number of aromatic and non-aromatic compounds, and thus is much more likely to be regulated by a large number of genes than, say, color, size, or pilosity. Plus, many such "simple" traits can have an allele that can completely override what would otherwise be a more additive trait, like dwarfism. Tall people will tend to sire tall children, but if you've got dwarf genes in there, you could very well have two tall parents that will have a dwarf child. Apparently, it's the same for hops. Another example could be color in honey bees: you can find anything from all back to almost all yellow, but if you've got the cordovan gene in there, all black pigment production can be suppressed, giving golden bees. While it's certainly feasible to an allele that would completely upregulate or downregulate the production of linalool, for example, specific essential oil compositions would likely be difficult to reproduce, especially with single crosses (as they may involve recessive mutant genes only found in one parent cultivar).
 
For example, powdery mildew resistance is conferred by a single gene. There are 7 (or 13, depending on who you follow) known genes that confer resistance. Each one recognizes a specific strain of the powdery mildew fungus, which will contain the corresponding gene for (a)virulence. If however, the fungus is missing that specific gene, then it can cause disease.

This would mean it would be a relatively simple trait to select for in a controlled setting. In the field, less so, because you cannot determine if it was merely an escape or if it's truly resistant.
 
This warm weather we're having here is getting me antsy to pull my seeds out of cold stratification.
 
Without trying to get technical, it sounds kinda like what I envisioned, hearing about the different genes that do this or that. I'm having fun with it but am not going to spend time going through the OSU data base and try to figure out all they have presented, was just looking for some generalities.

I do know, from a cross a few years ago, that the two I hooked up gave me kids with sidearms, vigor and oil quality(and quantity) just like mom. The aroma actually improved over what ma had to offer and it doesn't look like downy will be an issue. Was it her that allowed those traits to be passed on - or a combination of her and him? This year should be a learning one because I've let another fine lady mix it up with two handsome stallions last summer. The youngn's will probably be breaking ground soon as our weather has April-like for the entire month of Feb.
 
Without trying to get technical, it sounds kinda like what I envisioned, hearing about the different genes that do this or that. I'm having fun with it but am not going to spend time going through the OSU data base and try to figure out all they have presented, was just looking for some generalities.

I do know, from a cross a few years ago, that the two I hooked up gave me kids with sidearms, vigor and oil quality(and quantity) just like mom. The aroma actually improved over what ma had to offer and it doesn't look like downy will be an issue. Was it her that allowed those traits to be passed on - or a combination of her and him? This year should be a learning one because I've let another fine lady mix it up with two handsome stallions last summer. The youngn's will probably be breaking ground soon as our weather has April-like for the entire month of Feb.


It sounds like you got some champs in the making! It could have easily been inherited from one parent, or it could be a result of their combined genetics. Without having large families though, you'll never quite know if there was something better or worse that resulted though. The major issue that Apimyces touched on though, is a given individual is highly heterozygous for many traits and the progeny will be highly heterogeneous (resulting in many different mixtures of traits). So, as a breeder, you should identify from the onset which traits are most interesting to breed for while keeping in mind that you may lose others in the process (e.g. by breeding for high alpha hops you may be selecting against disease resistance, which is dependent upon the genetic linkage and architecture of the traits). This is usually why many hop breeders have to screen larger populations of individuals from a given cross, it's all a numbers game.

Just something to keep in mind!
 
I suspect that you can buy cocaine, heroin, pot, PCP, meth, or hire someone to off somebody you don't like..... on the streets of Yakima. I wonder if those Mexicans who work in the fields of the hop ranches have any idea how much guys like us would pay for a viable rooted Mosaic or Amarillo or Simco, etc........ cutting. It only takes one cutting for the genetics to escape the farm. It would be a bit surprising if there weren't a "hops underground". The Mexican smuggles out the cutting, someone in Idaho or Oregon cultivates it ostensibly as a decorative plant right in his front yard on a trellis over the front walk way, and along the back fence, and sells cuttings and rhizomes "out the back door" as "decorative hop plants". You can be arrested and jailed for growing pot. Hops grow all over and aren't illegal. It would be extremely difficult to prove the original crime even with genetic testing........ especially if you had an array of hops growing on your property including some of the parents of the variety......... How did Mosaic end up in Nebraska? The Mexican is long gone..........the only link.

H.W.
 
It's actually not all that difficult to prove via genetic testing, and the trademark owners have legal agreements with all workers on farms. So, in essence there's quite a bit to stop it from ever happening...
 
Anyways, the magical hop aura cells of these stolen varieties would seep into the skins of the thief and attach to the nearest blood cell before making their way to the heart, where their guilty conscience would convict them to misery, toe fungus and an early grave

Crime doesn't pay :D
 
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