Massachusetts - Hop Growing

Has anyone that lives in Massachusetts grown hops? I was curious to know what luck they had and how they went about it (time frames).

I have just planted 3 hop varieties up in New Hampshire, haven't sprouted yet.

Sean

What 3 varieties did you plant? How recently did you plan them?

I planted 1 cascade, 1 golding and 1 williamette on the 17th (last saturday) I've been trying to keep them well watered but its been hard since I don't live where they are planted.

Its been almost a week and no ground has been broker, I'll keep you updated.

Sean

I live in Hampden MA and grow, Cascade, Centennial, and Chinook hops. I have a friend in town that is growing, Cascade and Hallertauer hops. No problem growing hops in Massachusetts.

My Golding just sprouted one sprout, I'm so proud!!

I live in Maine, and have a 7 ft. vine of nugget already... this is the second year for my hops and they are absolutely exploding... kent goldings not as fast as the nugget.

I live in SE MA (South Coast) and have mostly Cascade - more than I could possibly use. I have wet hopped, dry hopped, etc. Later I planted Willamette, Kent Golding, Hallertauer and Sterling.

I'm in Watertown, and I've got first year Nugget, Cascade, and Goldings. The nugget and cascade are ~10ft, but the goldings is only 5-6ft. I haven't seen any hop cones yet, but I'm crossing my fingers!

I live in Boston and I planted 1 chinook, 1 cascade and 1 williamette and the only one that grew was the williamette. Its about 8 feet tall and going strong. The others must have been duds or it was something I did.

im in western Mass, my first year cascades are like 3 ft tall.
the sterling had a problem the bud kinda snapped so its been in recovery for the last few weeks, but its just starting to get up there..less than a foot.
2nd year plants should be close to 8ft now

I live on the South Shore and this Spring planted 20 cascade and 10 centenial. Cascade is going crazy, over the top of my 10' trellis. Centenial a little slower. This is a test crop. If I get a good yeild next year, am considering expanding and selling fresh, organic leaf hops. I have a few acres that would look nice with hops planted on them, plusa a big barn for drying. Used to be a lot of hops grown in the Northeast until the downy mildew problem. Cascade and centenial are fairly resistant.

Ok, so it hasn't stopped raining in/around Boston in what feels like weeks, but the temperature has remained constant around 65-70°. I turns out that's perfect for Downy mildew. I've got issues with my first year vines now.
I've got a nugget that's 10ft, a cascade that's 11ft, and a goldings that's 6ft and they seemed to be pretty healthy untill all of this rain showed up. It's been several days since I checked my vines, but I went out there this morning and was discusted with what I saw. My cascade and my goldings have black splotches all over the leaves, mostly on the upper parts of the vine. If you look at freshops.com and look at the downy mildew pictures, my vines look like the #3 picture. Can I save these vines? Does anybody know how to stop downy mildew? I'm not opposed to just chopping off all of the bines and replanting the crowns if I can save them. I wasn't really expecting cones from the plants this year anyways. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

Good news! Kindof anyways. After a much further analysis, it turns out that downy mildew is not the problem. Aphids and sooty mildew are though. I noticed a growing aphid population a week or two ago, so I ordered some ladybugs and let them loose. I figured it would take at least a week for the ladys to eat their fill, so I didn't bother checking up on them. It seems that they don't like all of this rain either, so they all took off (all 1500 of em!) and the aphids kept right on eating my vines. The black splotches are sooty mildew which grows in the aphid honeydew. It's not harmfull to the plant, so as long as I can take care of the aphid problem the vines should be ok. I'm headed to home depot to find a strong insecticide today. I don't have cones or sidearms yet, so a strong commercial insecticide should be ok. Lesson learned, don't trust ladybugs in the rain.

Hello,

Im growing 2 nugget and 2 glacier in allston. The plants are now all about 15 ft and im starting to get flowers on the nuggets. A guy i know uses some insecticide granules you put into the soil and then it kills everyhtijng on the plant

BJ

i use the soap base insecticide for aphids..non-toxic to us uprights also..watch out for cryssilis types nesting in the leaves, look for rolled up leaves,you'll see the webs in there if you find any, just pick em off before any hatching occurs.yes the rain sux azz, but my tomatoes love it

Here is a nice photo of a hop plant reaching for the sun. From my garden 7-5-2009
http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af17/slbradley01/HopPlantReachingfortheSun.jpg?t=1246803724

Here are my Hops in SE Mass. I have some on my shed. They are about 16' high cascades. The other cascades are on my house. The ones in the foreground are growing on a cable I have attached between 2 trees. They are about 18 feet high but I haven't measured them. As I recall the varieties are 2 german and 2 English style. Williamette, Kent Goldings, Hauletauer, and Sterling.

As you who grow know, the cascade are out of control. I get more of those than I can use, so I throw them away when the new crop comes. My neighbor thought he wanted to grow some one year, so I gave him a pot. He never planted them, so threw out the pot. Now he has cascades growing on the side of his house!

Looks great. What beers have you used them in? Good results?

slbradley01 said:

Looks great. What beers have you used them in? Good results?

Click to expand...

I can't remember everything I've brewed, but I've had the best results with dry or wet hopping. You can basically only do wet hopping if you have your own supply.

The side benefit is that you get a real feel for the differences in hop aroma as you are picking and drying them.

My plants could be doing better. All this rain if over watering them and I have some bugs eating alot of my leaves. I started using a natural fungicidal pesticide, but with all this rain I'd have to reapply it every day!

I think nature is going to take its course this year, as I can't check on my hops every morning.

So far only my cascade is showing signs of cones.

Sean From NH

Here on the South Shore.
Aphids are growing in numbers on my first year cascade.

Got rid of the aphids and flowers are coming in hot!

Down on the South Coast, I've harvested my Hallertauer, Sterling and Kent Goldings. I'm trying to get my wife to pick the Willamett today while I'm at work. My cascades are growing up high so I'll have to get a ladder up to see how they are doing.

I'm about ready to get ingredients for a Weissbeer (Hallertauer) and and ESB (Willamette and Goldings).

I think I mixed up where I planted my Hallertauer and Sterling. I can't believe that I could have gotten so much Hallertauer, so I'm switching what I'm calling those 2!

We picked 80% of the Fuggles last night.

Mt Hoods are about there and the Cascades arent far behind.

Brewing 10 gallons of bitter and using the Fuggles for FWH, 5 and 0
Still plenty Fuggles left on a rouge vine that wound its way around a cucumber trellis.

Hey Babalu, do you think I can stretch out another two weeks without picking? It just ain't in the cards before vacation.

PTN

paulthenurse said:

Hey Babalu, do you think I can stretch out another two weeks without picking? It just ain't in the cards before vacation.

PTN

Click to expand...

What do they look like now?

Once they start going brown its time, they go over the top REAL fast and you'll end up with lots of those all brown do not want in my beer hops.

Two weeks is a LONG time in the hop World
Last year I picked in late August but I'm sure I'll be all done by then this year.

I planted my first rhizomes last year. I wasn't sure how they were going to do this year because it's been so wet and cold at the start of the growing season. As it is I am at 1350' and it's cooler up here. Our garden is way behind last year, probably 4-5 weeks, so I don't think it's going to produce like last year. But the hops are looking good! In the last few weeks it finally warmed up and they took off. Some are looking pretty close to ready to pick. These photos of 2 plants were taken 2 days ago.
-Gerry

Wow! First crop plants? You done good!

PTN

Yes, I'm pretty happy with what I'm seeing out there for 1st crop. Makes me want to plant some more varieties in the spring now that I know that they grow well out here. I've got 2 Cascade and 2 Centennial, I'll have to pick a few more out now.

I have harvested most of my hops....some were a little young but I am not going to be available to harvest laters..and figured...young is better than dead...

I have (DRIED)

.5 oz fuggle (2 plants)
12.3 oz cascade (2 plants)
7.5 oz centennial (1 plant)

-Will