Willamette well rooted but no sprouts! Suggestions?

I've got 4 hills on my trellis with room for 6 or 7 . My Cascades (2 hills) and Kent Goldings are doing well. I started all my hops in pots and have transplanted them to my trellis. Here's the rub. My Willamette hops have fantastic root development to this point and had one or 2 shoots reach the soil surface but then they browned up and dried out. While transplanting last night I inspected them closely and could not see any more shoots coming out but I have to restate there was fantastic root development. I'm wondering if I have a serious problem or if more shoots will be produced and I shouldn't worry. I used rooting hormone on all my rhizomes and the Willamette were the healthiest looking rhizomes I had. What gives?

Why have the one or 2 shoots that reached the surface browned up?

Will more shoots be produced?

Thanks for the help,
Phillip

I'd suggest not worrying about it. Let them do their thing.

+1 I have three rhizomes planted this spring. The Magnum "twig" has only root development thus far. The Mt. Hood "monster" has multiple shoots waiting to break the surface all at once. The "middle child" Centennial broke ground yesterday. I pulled them up three days ago to make sure that they were progessing, nine days after laying them in the ground. Compulsive for sure, but I want to get a replacement in the ground if they don't take off.

Point is, they all have their own schedule and I would be just as happy (maybe more) with great root development as I would greenery out of the ground. Expect great things out of all of them next year, especially the willas. I was happy to see growth on all as this means I didn't get duds.

Edit: I have a four year old cascade about three feet up the twine in MI (!) so I speak with a bit of experience.

What you describe sounds like a term called dampening off. However, I am not sure if hops is very susceptable to this fungal attack or not. But, you could have had a blast of really dry air or something that nipped the new shoots back.

Thanks for the input team... though I'm not sure we have an answer for "why" as of yet or if they'll produce shoots...

fyi the reason for my concern is they've been in the ground for about a month, maybe 5 weeks!

My family was in the wholesale nursery business for 17 years, my old man has forgotten more about plants and how to grow them than any 1000 people I know. I haven't gotten around to asking him what might be up with them. Thought I might get some info from a "hop expert". I did see a thread with similar difficulties and his finally broke through so I think the "wait and see" approach is gonna have to be my only recourse.

Schlante,
Phillip

I think the "relax don't worry and have a homebrew" is the approach you'll like much better, but you're on the right track.

I know some of the people on this thread have 5 foot vines right now, but most of us just have little sprouts. It's still pretty early in the season to be worrying.

Hmm, so I live in PA and the temps are obviously much warmer right now so I can give you my story.

Got 4 bines with some roots from a local friend. These I planted and saw something similar to what you have. A couple of the bines seemed to just brown at the growing point and stop. They haven't died yet, but really don't seem to be doing anything. I don't want to stress the plant and/or invite disease and so have just left them.

But I attribute that to POOR root development not being able to supply the nutrients for the growing bines. In your case, if it wasn't temperature related (and not a disease) I would think it could be a nutrient deficiency. Damage/die-off of growing tips is a common condition of calcium deficiency but that is pretty rare in most cases (not a commonly deficient nutrient in either soil or water). If you can look at other parts of the plant (are there ANY leaves that are present or the shoots just died off right after surfacing?) you can use some of these online charts/pics to look for specific deficiencies, but the easiest thing to do would be to get some compost, place it around the rhizome (not directly on it) and water in well. If it's a nutrient deficiency this should alleviate the problem.

http://4e.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=t&id=289

HTH