So I picked some cones...

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magnj

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Although I realize it's early, cones on my second year Chinook plants are big and some are starting to brown on the tips. So I stood on a chair for the last hour testing all the big cones for feel and it turns out a lot of them feel ready to go. Some are browning, some are papery, some are gushing with Lupulin. There is also a lot of new growth in the last few days, new buds all over. The plants are 10ft vertical and about 5 feet horizontal and seem to have stopped expanding on the main bines, spitting out side shoots all over.

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So the book I have, Homebrewer's Garden says to get them in a paper bag in a dry warm spot...any more specific tips? If I put them in a cabinet like this will they dry out?
 
I'm jealous. My first year plants are only a few feet tall. I had to deal with white flies and other pests though. By the way, awesome pictures!
 
Spreading them on some type of screen in a dry dark place will work the best, but the bag should work as long as they are in a DRY environment with some airflow. Mold can rear it's ugly head quickly, especially when they're laying together like that.

Garden's looking good Bobby. Did you split your Chinook or plant other varieties? A little close together but damn they look happy. Maybe that's just the proud papa;)
 
Nice Bobby! I think by limiting their height I encouraged them to flower a lot more. Unfortunately I don't have a particularly dry house maybe I'll accelerate it with a space heater?
 
I put mine in a paper bag in the attic and they were dried out in two nights in the summer. I am going to be using the screen method this year since I hope to have more hops.
 
I take too many pictures...here is a cutaway of a cone. This one was picked about a week before the other, it was too wet but you can see the Lupulin.
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Did u wrap the 1st growth ? Way early but look good !! Fruasia is what I think the browning is called.Just looked in the Compendium for it but cannot find. So not sure.Cheers Glen
 
I'm still amazed that so are picking this early. May be I should take a close look at the cones I have. Some of them have been large for a few weeks now.
 
Did u wrap the 1st growth ? Way early but look good !! Fruasia is what I think the browning is called.Just looked in the Compendium for it but cannot find. So not sure.Cheers Glen
Nope I trained 4 bines for each plant 2 bines on two lines. I pulled all the other sprouts out. I didn't really know I was supposed to wrap them?

I'm still amazed that so are picking this early. May be I should take a close look at the cones I have. Some of them have been large for a few weeks now.
Mine have been large for probably 2-3 weeks. I only picked the papery ones, I expect it will be an ongoing process as there are all stages of cones on each plant.

In other news my Cascade plant is budding but the cones are really small and have developed oddly. That plant does get less sun though.
 
i think what the HOPFARMER meant was "did you train the early shoots/ or did you remove them and train the later shoots". by training the early growth you can push the harvest forward but i've always waited till around mid may to train them and everything is good with this method.
 
I picked another batch tonight, probably about 1 ounce after drying it.


The first batch I picked is almost as dry as I'm gonna get it. And I took some better macro shots of one of the dried cones today.


 
awesome shots. what plant is this? i was under the impression that most hops were done much later around aug/sept. mid/end June is way earlier than that obviously. just surprised. and when did you first start to get shoots out of the ground??
 
Thanks! Yes it's early for harvesting, I got my first shoots the first week of April and just let them go. Trained 4 bines for each plant and they've been going crazy since.
 
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