Very few first year hops doing anything....

I purchased 9 rhizomes from Midwest back in March and I got them in the dirt in mid April. 3 Cascade, 3 Cenntennial, 2 Chinook, and 1 Hallertau .

Planted on the north east corner of backyard..slight hill to yard and cut out raised beds with nice mixture of dirt from my vegtable garden that I prepped all winter. All of the Cascades looked like twigs so I planted them sidways as with the 2 Chinook. My Cenntennial broke ground and is now just over a foot and doing good. My Hallertau just popped out last week and is getting going..but the Cascade and Chinook are doing nothing..I dug them up and saw zero shoots or roots growing..I have been watering them nicely from the beggining and the gound drains well so they are not over wet..the area gets a good 7 to 9 hours of sunlight now so that is not a problem..and my soil should be great!!

I emailed Midwest about the twigs to get thoughts and have not heard back..is this just what to expect? I would have hoped for maybe 1 of the 3 Cascades to go but man..of all of them I was hoping for them to do something..The weather has been cool and is finally warming up here in Chicago. Keep them in and see what happens?? it is 2 months now in the dirt..

any suggestions would be great

Jay

I ordered cascades and a Chinook from Midwest as well, along with a Willamette. The Willimette took off strong, the Chinook took several weeks to break ground and grew slowly but is now going strong after about 2 months. My cascades however fared poorly in pots and now that I have them in the garden they're coming to life. They were by far the weakest and smallest of the rhizomes that midwest sent me.

When I've emailed these folks in the past it usually takes a day or two for them to respond as well.....

The Soft Underbelly said:

I ordered cascades and a Chinook from Midwest as well, along with a Willamette. The Willimette took off strong, the Chinook took several weeks to break ground and grew slowly but is now going strong after about 2 months. My cascades however fared poorly in pots and now that I have them in the garden they're coming to life. They were by far the weakest and smallest of the rhizomes that midwest sent me.

When I've emailed these folks in the past it usually takes a day or two for them to respond as well.....

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How long in the ground before they did anything?

My Cascade were the smallest as well and the only ones with zero shoots or roots..Im hoping for the best but wanted to have an established plant next year so I could get some yield..might not happen and now I am out to 2010 hops

Jay

How warm is the soil?

Plants operate kind of like a mash. They need to reach the proper minimal temperature before the enzymes within start to work their magic. A few of mine took a couple months to break ground too.

Trick is to be patient and never expect a yield from a first year plant. Even if you do get cones, there prolly' wont be many and their content will prolly be lacking.

It really does take at least 3 years for the plant to mature to obtain proper yield and content. There just isn;t much of anything associated with brewing that offers instant gratification other than popping the cap on a bottle.

There is a very good chance your Cascades will sprout once the ground warms up. Cascade plants do not like cold weather. Mine are in their third year and of eight hops, they were the second to last to sprout this year. They are now the tallest.

Sunlight is key... I planted mine on the south side of the house, lots of sun. My Willamette are the biggest and get the most sun - 3 feet high. The Mt. Hoods get a little shade and they're about 12-18 inches. The Cascade get a touch more shade and are only like 3 inches high.

I will just leave them and see what happens..It has been a bad spring here in Chicago. We are in the 80's and 90's now so the ground should be nice and warm. The plants are getting a good 7 to 9 hours of nice sun..It is on the north side..way way in the back and I only have one large tree that does not affect them so they start to get sun between 9 and 10 am and continue until about 6pm. I did not expect any yield this year but want to be sure they grown underground so they can do much better next year..I will keep an eye over the next few weeks and see what happens.

Jay

discgolfin said:

I will just leave them and see what happens..It has been a bad spring here in Chicago. We are in the 80's and 90's now so the ground should be nice and warm. The plants are getting a good 7 to 9 hours of nice sun..It is on the north side..way way in the back and I only have one large tree that does not affect them so they start to get sun between 9 and 10 am and continue until about 6pm. I did not expect any yield this year but want to be sure they grown underground so they can do much better next year..I will keep an eye over the next few weeks and see what happens.

Jay

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my fuggles are about 2 ft now (Chicago) it was an awkard spring. I ordered 2 rhizomes from midwest 1 Cascade (died at my own accidental hand) 1 Fuggle.

the cascade was doing really good too about 5 inches before i accidently stepped on it while weeding.


Carlos

I'm in the same boat. My cascades show no signs of growing.

I planted 12 Cascade and only 2 havent shown anything.... But I am going to leave them until next year. here is my hop yard
JJ

One hell of a hopyard you got there Jay. At the moment, I could only wish to have that much land to plant. Had to plant mine in half barrels...

the ones that look like twigs dont really do that much from what i have noticed. its the one that look like they are roots that do the best.

discgolfin.... how go the hops now? any improvement? Now that the rain is gone and it's cooled off a bit, my otherwise weak cascades are much improved.

All of my hops came up and are doing OK. I have a Nugget that is only 1 ft tall but everything else is 6' or more now (2 cascade, 1 nugget, 1 williamette from FreshHops, 1 East kent golding from a friend, 3 fuggles from a hop rhizome exchange).

I'm in Dundee, IL and though the plants do get some shade they have grown well, I don't water them much as we have been getting a lot of rain, I only will water them if it's been a week since it rained, they are mulched well with leaves and grass clippings to keep moisture in the ground.

I hope yours are doing better now that it has warmed up a bit.

I planted hallartauer and goldings about three months ago and the hallartuar are about 8 feet and the goldings are about 3 inches. Its pretty warm here so I have them in a pretty shaddy area.

My Cenntenials are all doing great(4 feet)..hallartuar is about 6 inches and nothing from the cascades or chinook..but hey u never know..they may show up in July.

Jay

I have first year hops form Midwest as well, Cascade, williamette, Mt. Hood and Goldings. All are over 8ft tall now and doing well. They took over a month to break the ground, but are growing about a foot a week now. The Cascade gets the most shade, but is still almost 8 ft. I also got a rhizome from Fresh Hops, and it is a much stronger plant, but still about the same height as the others.

I purchased three rhizomes from Freshops (Cascade, Magnum, Nugget). The Magnum are only about 9" high but the Cascade and the Nugget are probably close to 10'. I say probably because, unfortunately, I had to grow them vertically for the first 6' and then train them to grow laterally because of the circumstances of my tiny urban yard. They are all healthy, but the Magnum just isn't as magnum as I thought it would be.

So it seems everyone is just getting mixed results from their first year plants?

I'm getting results, but ambiguous about how they might turn out. All 4 of my plants (2 Cascades, a Willamette & a Chinook) are growing strong, but they all seem to be getting some sort of wilt. Perhaps downy mildew... is this even prevalent in the great lakes region? Perhaps bird s**t... they're trained to a lattice that birds land on (they seem to eat bugs) or perhaps some other sort of malady I cant identify.

The problem I have is that professional, informed literature with good color photos relating to hops growth is sparse, and that which I can find hasn't been very helpful.

Everything else in the garden is growing great this year (some sort of somthin on the celery but not the extent to which the hops are suffering) so I'm not all that worried. I've treated with a 3 in 1 fungicide, insecticide, mite-a-cide, and that seems to have helped at least a bit.

I planted 5 rhizomes this year. All 5 appear to be healthy and growing well. I have 2 over 12 feet and 2 at about 7 feet. All 5 have are starting to develop hop cones.

I was also having some bug issues in the beginning and was using an organic 3 in 1. The product that I was using did not seem to do much to slow down the bugs. I ended up switching to using Ortho Max and spraying my hops down. I know most of us would like to stay with the most organic stuff we can, but the organic stuff just did not seem to work well for me.

Good luck with your hops and I hope the 3 in 1 helps.

I may give the othro max a try then. I'm not opposed to going "non-organic" particularly if its far enough in advance of the harvest. Just wish i knew what the heck it was.

i planted three hops in mid may. all three are up, it took em about six weeks to break ground. the nugget is over 8 foot, and the magnum is about five. the goldings are pathetically tiny, maybe a foot, but they got dug up twice by critters, and i was surprised they took hold. the nugget cuttings was really fat and thick, the other two were twigs.

Ok, I put 24 rhizomes in the ground this year; last week of May. 10 Cascade, 10 Brewers Gold and 4 Willamette. Its been over 8 weeks and all I have is 1 very strong Willamette about 1 foot tall and 1 Brewers Gold about the same height. Is anyone else having these kind of results? Is it possible that many will not break ground this year but will sprout next year? Any help or suggestions would be great!

I've written off the ones that didn't sprout as DOA. I have 1st year babies over 20' tall

Only two plants out of 24 rhizomes? That doesn't sound right. I planted 8 and all but one came up. At 8 weeks I'd definitely consider digging some up to take a look. If they don't sprout this year, I can't believe they'd come up next year.

I planted 8 in 16" pots and I got 3 to grow. 1 cascade (15 foot with cones coming in), 1 mt hood (12 foot with a few cones), and 1 centential (6 foot)
But my electronic timer went south for the summer and won't work. I didn't know for 5 days or so. all my side arms at the bottom of the plant died off because I didn't happen to go in the back yard for 4 days. But the plants seem to coming along well still.

of 5 rhizomes, 1 cascade is 18 ft tall, tons of cones.

1 Magnum is 3 ft tall.

The other 3 either sprouted and croaked, or were dug up by something.

I was pretty discouraged, but I guess I should count myself lucky that I will get some cones this year.