Recovering from hail

Just wondering if anyone has any experience recovering from hail damage? We just had a nasty line of t-storms come through and it dumped quarter sized hail on my cascades, centennials, and zeus plants (not to mention our vegetable garden which is completely destroyed for the most part). The centennials took the most beating.. 95% of the leaves are gone. The cascades base leaves are no longer but the vines on the fence seem to hold up ok. The zeus seems like it took on some damage, but not as much as the others though it's right next to the centennials. All are about 7-10 ft in height and showed the beginning signs of cone production. So should I cut the bines down and start from scratch or leave them as is and see what happens? The cascades are 2nd year and the others are first year.

Leave them now to see if they'll continue to grow.
You might not get a harvest this year from them.

I don't have a solution, but I feel your pain. My garden got hit three times this week from the same storms. My hops seem to have weathered it better than my tomatoes and jalapenos.

check youtube for hop hail damage in the czech republic, crops were wiped out a few years back

I saw the thread title and knew you had to be from around my area.

Don't have any advice but I feel your pain. Three good size hail storms in the last 7 days. Luckly our first year Nuggets seam to have made it through alright.

Hope yours pull through.

anderj said:

check youtube for hop hail damage in the czech republic, crops were wiped out a few years back

Click to expand...

Heck, look at the damage they took this year.
A hail of a mess for German hops and beer
There really isn't much you can do at this point. Leave the bines up so they continue to send carbs to the roots, but I wouldn't count on a harvest.

I wasn't expecting a large harvest, but was looking forward to something (at least from my cascades). Oh well, maybe next year. Another quick question, should I increase the fertilizing a little bit or would this put even more stress on them? I'm more or less trying to build the root system at this point since they are 1st and 2nd years .

The German crop got hit a couple weeks ago, and they expect about 85% of the normal yield. Most of the biomass (leaves, etc) forms in June, so I expect yours will recover. I wouldn't change the watering/fertilizer schedule.

We got destroyed today by hail. It broke the tip off of my first year Cascade and ripped the leaves off many of my Zeus, Nugget and Centennial. So I should just let everything go and hope for the best?

Have you put anything down for fertilizer or soil amendments? If so, what? Also, in your opinion, how would you rate the health of your plant prior to the storm and is there any foliage and stem left?

I don't have any advice, just empathy. My hops both took a beating. I probably lost at least half of every leaf on each bine. I was lucky enough not to lose any tips though. The good news is that mine seem to be doing well (all things considered) three days later. That'll teach me to leave town for one night to go to a wedding

They look like they are recovering. They aren't droopy and pathetic looking anymore. They are first year and I know not to expect much anyway.