Simcoe rhizomes? Who can tell me where they are???

I LOVE simcoe hops and would LOVE even more to have them ready for picking each year on a vine but obviously buying them at a store is not an option from what I can tell.

Does anyone have any information on where you can find them? Or does anyone live near a simcoe farm and can go and dig one up for me (stealing is a crime)?

It's a patented brand from Yakima Chief Inc. so you're not likely to find one for sale online. Here's something to check out. If somebody had a rhizome for sale they'd probably PM you instead

Please PM me if anyone on these forums have a rhizome of Simcoe. I would LOVE to get my hand on just one of these! I use so much simcoe for my own private brewing that I could save myself a lot of money by growing these myself.

Me too

me too

Proprietary hop varieties are highly protected. If you want a rhizome, you're going to have to grand a flashlight and a trowel and get one yourself. Make sure you wear camouflage!

hatfieldenator said:

... I use so much simcoe for my own private brewing that I could save myself a lot of money by growing these myself.

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Which is why Yakima Chief would rather hang on to the trademark and recover their investment in developing Simcoe.

I too would love to have a couple bines on the side of my house, but I fear I will be dead before the trademark expires.

thought they could only hold the trademark for X amount of years? 5 or 10 comes to mind? Only reason i say this is cause I thought I read it in an "anyone have any Amarillo rhizomes?" thread.
tom

Trademark, patents, it's all meaningless. The companies own the only existing plants of the varieties and control every aspect of where it's being farmed and processed... so unless a farmhand runs off with a rhizome, someone sneaks into the unmarked hop fields and digs one up, the variety loses popularity so they decide to be more open about it or it becomes too popular that they stand to make more money opening it up than doing everything in house (probably not very likely), it's doubtful you're going to see a rhizome. Maybe in 20 years, but there's too much demand making it too valuable right now to give up.

Sadly this is the way the hop industry is shifting, especially since hops have a fairly low profit margin... which is why many farms before the hop crisis were shifting farmland away from growing hops and to more profitable plants.

Walking through a field of Simcoe was a pretty awesome experience for me a couple years ago. I love that hop. Hopefully I'll get to do it again this summer.

SPLASTiK said:

Trademark, patents, it's all meaningless. The companies own the only existing plants of the varieties and control every aspect of where it's being farmed and processed...

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I was just going to write the same thing. If their patent/trademark ended TODAY, there is nothing that forces them to start selling rhizomes. And if another company wanted to copy the breed, even if they knew exactly what was crossed to create it, when dealing with living things, the odds of them perfectly matching it are near impossible. It would take years of development.

Sorry to say, but none of us are going to be growing Simcoe at home any time soon.