Small farm

I've got a couple questions regarding scale for those of you who have been around the block a few times.


I have a small tract of farm land that my wife and I bought (about 10 acres) and built our house on. I have a clearing behind our home that I would like to put a small scale hop farm on. I want to do something that will allow me to start small (50 crowns, 25 of 2varieties). I want to do something that will allow me to expand in the future if I decide it's worthwhile.

As an electric co-op customer I have access to free telephone poles that the electric company has rejected for one reason or another. In the past we have used this for other farm related activities with no problems. My father in law has a horse ranch (190 acres) right down the road so augers and lifts to put the poles in the ground won't be a problem.

I'm thinking of creating two "lines" of hops, but putting the poles in the ground at a "to be deterimined" spacing and plant the hops ever 2.5 feet along the length of that line. I would suspend a cable between the two poles at or near the top and hand hop twine directly down to a stake in the ground at the crown. I would have 2 rows like this about 6-8' apart so I can drive a small garden tractor between the rows, and a different variety on each row. This would allow me to add on to the end of a row for more of the same variety, and my acreage would allow me to add future rows in front or behind these.

On to my question. When these plants begin to grow, they are going to put a lot of weight on the cable suspended between the poles. With a crown at ever 2.5' how much distance can I put between the poles before the weight of the bines becomes too much for the cable. The weight and tension of the cable has to be such that it, along with the weight of the plants won't pull the poles over. Has anyone set something like this up in the past? did you use guide lines for the poles to keep the upright?

My original thought was to put 4 poles in the ground and send the hops up yarn in a christmas tree fashion up the pole, but putting them in rows seems like it will be much easier to maintain the hop yard and possibly get more plants per pole.

Ideas suggestions?

I'd say go per plan, but rather than tieing off the cable at the top of the poles, run a hole through and just add to the length of the line so that your line goes to ground from the pole. like a tent tiedown. If you use steel braded line covered in plastic (weather proof). something like 3/8+" I'd think it could take any pressure from 12 plants if you want to split them and have a pole in the middle to spread the load. 12 plants with a spread of 2.5' between is going to be 30' between poles. So 60' for each row.

Nice starter Hop farm in my opinion.

Cheers and man I wish I could get "Reject" poles.....

Thanks, I was leaning towards the "tent tiedown" type just to keep the poles upright, but didn't know if it was over kill. if I have 30' between poles that's 10-12 plants between poles. Even at 20lbs per plant that shouldn't be too bad weight wise, so I feel a little better.

I've got enough room that I could eventually run each row out to about 150' without having to clear much in the way of trees or fool with ground work (drainage is very good at this particular site). 150' would allow me to eventually to expand to 50-60 plants per row, and I have enough depth to add as many rows as I could ever hope to handle.

I think I'll go with two rows, 60' long using 6 posts (3 per row. One variety on each row about 20-25 plants on each. If all goes well there will be room to double my plants without having to do any more infrastructure immediately. 2 rows would hold 100 plants and I'm pretty sure I can't process that many without help (I have the space, just not enough hands).

Most hop yards use 4 feet between plants and 14 feet between rows. This is partially to minimize the cost of the drip irrigation system and partially to allow the use of vertical yarns. The latter minimizes the amount of bine training. Older yards used a 7x7 grid, but that required two overhead lines per row and much more training.

With two bines per plant, figure 15-20 pounds maximum.

horse ranch - maybe this opens the "organic" option.

Have you thought about how you're going to harvest and dry the hops? I'm no expert in this matter, but there was a lot of fairly specialized (customized) gear they were using when Mike went to a farm on Dirty Jobs. Have you thought through the whole processing aspect?

I've though through the drying a bit. my father-in-laws stable is pretty good sized (80 x 120). I'm planning on using scrap 1" and 2" oak (milled from the farm and left over from building the barn) to build large drying screens that we will suspend in the rafters of the barn. I figure I have two years to get that part completely figured out, as the first year harvest can probably be done in my barn (24 X 40). This should also give me a better idea of the scale I will need to implement for 50+ mature plants.

Since we do a lot of hunting we have a large "nearly commercial" vacuum system that we can put whole shoulders, butts, loins etc in, it should be perfect for sealing up 1+lb portions of hops.

So to answer the question...I have though through the processing aspect, but I'm also aware that it probably won't be sufficient for the first mature yield and that I will probably have to make some changes before the 2nd year harvest.

As for the spacing I was originally planning 3' per plant with 10' of space between rows to get a larger tractor in between rows. Might still do this, I just didn't want to put rows 10-20' apart and then some day wish I had gone closer. Guess it goes both ways. I'm not looking to become a commercial grower, just want something bigger than a garden, closer to the "hobby farm" scale. Enough to supply myself and supplement the expenses by selling/trading to club members.

Might be of use... DL the pdf...

Hop Gardening

bmarley5780 said:

Might be of use... DL the pdf...

Hop Gardening

Click to expand...

Funny,
i've been through that site a hundred times and even read through that entire page you linked to, but never saw the 26 page PDF on there.


Thanks

How will you HARVEST all those hops? Hell, harvesting from my 6 bines is enough!

Are you doing this for income? How will you measure the IBU's... you will never be able to sell a single hop without being able to tell customers what the IBU's are on your particular crop.

The Pol said:

How will you HARVEST all those hops? Hell, harvesting from my 6 bines is enough!

Are you doing this for income? How will you measure the IBU's... you will never be able to sell a single hop without being able to tell customers what the IBU's are on your particular crop.

Click to expand...

The harvest is the part that concerns me the most. I've got a few extra hands that I can get to do the work for beer....but we aren't really talking about an hour or two of labor here are we? So aside from family, self, friends I do have to work out the harvest.

As for the AA, this is something I think i have under control. The AG department at the University of Missouri will test for a price. Last I had heard it was 50-75 bucks, which wouldn't be a bad price to pay if I had a crop big enough to try to sell.

I'm not doing this for income, however I wouldn't be opposed to that happening, it certainly isn't something I would be dependent upon. Mainly it's for person consumption, along with club consumption. If I end up trading away most of my crop for grain to club members, then so be it.

Dloucks said:

The harvest is the part that concerns me the most. I've got a few extra hands that I can get to do the work for beer....but we aren't really talking about an hour or two of labor here are we? So aside from family, self, friends I do have to work out the harvest.

As for the AA, this is something I think i have under control. The AG department at the University of Missouri will test for a price. Last I had heard it was 50-75 bucks, which wouldn't be a bad price to pay if I had a crop big enough to try to sell.

I'm not doing this for income, however I wouldn't be opposed to that happening, it certainly isn't something I would be dependent upon. Mainly it's for person consumption, along with club consumption. If I end up trading away most of my crop for grain to club members, then so be it.

Click to expand...

Me and a coworker are doing the exact same thing at my place this year. I contacted a small grower in NY and the harvesting labor was/is the factor when trying to decide to go bigger. His exact words were "if you can figure out a way to get them off the vine efficiently, the sky is the limit." He said anything over an acre is pretty much the line from where it can be done manually verses mechanically.

My plan is to try to come up with a homemade picker utilizing a conveyer system with picking fingers of some sort. The problem is, there is not enough info out there for plans on building one since it is such a niche industry. But I am mechanically inclined and I currently do some farming now so I won't be going into this completely blind.

Check out this talk forum Forum - Gorst Valley Hops Forum there is some good info on there for small scale producers trying to get started.

Historically, the hop yards around here bused students in from the local colleges for the harvest. Now, the farms are so large that only the $500,000 strippers can handle the load. There are some pictures of a small hop stripper at this page http://www.simpson.uk.com/beers/Belgium/PopHopHarvest.htm

Drying will also be a consideration.

BUT, maybe you can turn harvest into a festival for the club along the lines of hopmadness. This involves making fresh hop beer, as well as drinking beer, talking about beer, camping out & cursing beer in the morning, etc.

With the reading I've done in the last 24 hours, I may continue on my original plan for building the trellis system, however I may cut back to only 10 plants of each variety. The first year will yield a very small amount of actual cones and should give me a better idea of what I am in for as far as harvest labor and drying. Then I can take rhizomes off of those two rows to increase size if I feel like taking a bigger plunge. Even with 20 plants I think the harvest would be a pretty consuming affair.

Dloucks - Check the two links below. These guys have small commercial operations and may be able to provide you with more detailed information.

Home Page

Colorado Organic Hops, Organic Brewing Hop Rhizomes, Hop Growing, Organic Hops, Growing Hops For Beer

And there is lots of good information at this Yahoo group page.

Grow-Hops : Homebrewer's Garden: Hops/Barley/Herbs

I put up some u tubes of my picker & dryer Glen

david_42 said:

only the $500,000 strippers can handle the load.

Click to expand...

I think this is going in my sig...

Plowboymiz said:

Me and a coworker are doing the exact same thing at my place this year. I contacted a small grower in NY ...

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Hey plowboymiz, where in NY do you live? LI here, you upstate or downstate?

underwaterdan said:

Hey plowboymiz, where in NY do you live? LI here, you upstate or downstate?

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I guess I should have said I am actually in SW Pennsylvania but NY is the closest I could find anyone who is growing on a scale larger than a couple plants in the back yard.

GreenwoodRover said:

I think this is going in my sig...

Click to expand...

ROFL

if you didn't, i would have.

^ THANK YOU, thank you
It had been up for over 12 hours and I was starting to think the maturity of the board has progressed beyond my 5th grade farts and hooker jokes mentality.

I've been reading and reading for weeks on this subject and the harvest and drying have me a little intimidated now, especially on the scale I was originally planning. Anyone on here growing ~20 plants? How long does the harvest take, and what have you found to be the best way to dry that many hops?

I did 14 plants last year, the harvest was involved but not to much for a couple of friends, a weekend and some beers. The nice thing is that if you have varieties that are ready to pick at different times the work is spread out a bit.
-Ander

Well, yesterday I ordered 4 cents and 4 wills from midwest. I will order a 4-6 more from another supplier when they are available. I'm trying to hedge by bets for stuff getting lost in the mail, orders arriving dried out etc. No turning back now I reckon.

I'm going to go with two 40' rows, with angled telephone poles on the ends and a 3rd pole in the middle, with 3/8" line strung across and guy lines set in cinder blocks on the ends. This will give me 2 20' runs that will each house 5 plants spaced 4' apart. I'll have additional room on the ends to run bines up the guy lines as well, so I could in theory get 12 plants per 40' run. I'm going to put in a separate run for the Cents and Willamette's.

I've got the poles and cinder blocks already on site, just have to buy the cable. If the weather warms up a bit I am going to trench a water line to the site and mount a hydrant next to one of the poles. This will prevent me from having to drag 150' of hose out to the site and move it every time I mow. This will also make it possible to install an irrigation system which if I know me, it will be very important. The only thing left to do before I set the poles is to burn a huge pile of brush that we pushed out when clearing the property and it's right in the middle of my yard. Once it is burnt my father in law will use his CAT to take away whats left and I can set the poles as well as start raking the yard for seeding. I'll post pics once the site is at least prepared, and throughout the process.

Funny little side note. I had only told my wife "part" of what I was wanting to do, I hadn't really discussed the scope and magnitude yet, fearing that she would not be happy about 20' vines growing on poles in the back yard. Yesterday she mentioned that she would really like to put in a garden in the back this year, which I told her I was all for, and that it would be easier since I was going to be running water back to the back anyway. She the said rather sheepishly "I was kind a hoping to plant a big garden". At this point I was able to spill my guts about my plans. The only down side is that she is wanting to put her garden right about where I was wanting to put up a barn, but that can be worked out later.

Sadly, after seeing Rover's quote elsewhere and tracking the post here, I visited the link to see exactly WHAT a $500,000 stripper would look like.

david_42 said:

Now, the farms are so large that only the $500,000 strippers can handle the load. There are some pictures of a small hop stripper at this page Poperinge Hop Harvest

Click to expand...

I was very sad to see that it was an old drunken midget stripper, and that he was dressed like one of Santa's Elves. EWWW!

Crannóg Ales - Downloads

I am assuming you have this small farm hops growing manual...I too am planting about 1/4-1/2 acre with many of the same concerns and resources you have. It tends to be the harvesting that is problematic....either bring lots of friends, hire labor, or what I may do is cut down the bines and drive them to the nearest hop stripper. I will be growing in the southern Cascades in N. Calif. and I am looking into whether Sierra Nevada would be willing to rent out the hop processing equipment they have?

Good luck!

Tim

I ordered the ramaining 16 rhizomes that I wanted for this year. that gives me a total of 12 Centennials and 12 Willamette's for this year.

Still haven't had good enough weather to burn the remainder of the brush or trench the water line but I think we are getting closer. We are getting more frequent "nice spells" and March is right around the corner. My concern at this point is the ground staying dry enough to get the equipment in and out of the hop yard to clear the brush pile, set the poles and run the water line.

Again pictures will follow if I ever get the brush burned and dozed.

You have to go with the "tent tiedown" scenario or you will bust the poles guaranteed.
I've worked on hop farms for a few years. If you go 2.5' b/w hills, good luck keeping the crowns seperate. With only 25 hills per side running 75' total length, I would suggest 3 poles per row would suit your needs this year. As you add on, so do the poles and the distance b/w starts to decrease unless you run a grid.
As your setup get bigger, don't forget to start your harvest of each row in the middle so you don't off-set the weight distrubution and bring down all your poles.
Other than that, you're gonna have a great time with this!

Dloucks said:

The harvest is the part that concerns me the most. I've got a few extra hands that I can get to do the work for beer....but we aren't really talking about an hour or two of labor here are we? So aside from family, self, friends I do have to work out the harvest.

As for the AA, this is something I think i have under control. The AG department at the University of Missouri will test for a price. Last I had heard it was 50-75 bucks, which wouldn't be a bad price to pay if I had a crop big enough to try to sell.

I'm not doing this for income, however I wouldn't be opposed to that happening, it certainly isn't something I would be dependent upon. Mainly it's for person consumption, along with club consumption. If I end up trading away most of my crop for grain to club members, then so be it.

Click to expand...

you could always sell to a local brewery your extra hops.

CentralWABrewing said:

You have to go with the "tent tiedown" scenario or you will bust the poles guaranteed.
I've worked on hop farms for a few years. If you go 2.5' b/w hills, good luck keeping the crowns seperate. With only 25 hills per side running 75' total length, I would suggest 3 poles per row would suit your needs this year. As you add on, so do the poles and the distance b/w starts to decrease unless you run a grid.
As your setup get bigger, don't forget to start your harvest of each row in the middle so you don't off-set the weight distrubution and bring down all your poles.
Other than that, you're gonna have a great time with this!

Click to expand...

I don't know if you saw my "edits" as this idea has grown, but I've changed my plans to have 2 rows this year that are 60' long with three poles per row. This will give me 30' between poles and 5 plants between each pole this will give me 4-5' between crowns. So I'll have 10 plants on each row plus two more trained up the "tent-tie-downs" on the ends. That allows me to have 12 plants on each row this year, for a total of 24 plants this season.

thanks for the advice on the harvesting from the middle, hadn't thought about that, but I can see where it would cause a problelm that I hadn't considered.

Right on!
You got a good setup.

Another WOA, I attached a 90 degree elbow to the end of my leaf blower, drilled a small hole in the tip, and inject an aphid spray in the hole. This gets the hops leaves to stand straight up while coating the bottom side of them(where all the dang bugs live). Works wonderful. Got the idea from seeing the sprayers on the fields.

CentralWABrewing said:

Right on!
You got a good setup.

Another WOA, I attached a 90 degree elbow to the end of my leaf blower, drilled a small hole in the tip, and inject an aphid spray in the hole. This gets the hops leaves to stand straight up while coating the bottom side of them(where all the dang bugs live). Works wonderful. Got the idea from seeing the sprayers on the fields.

Click to expand...

? Since the first year is going to be a minimum yield and primarily for root establishment, how much do you worry about pests like aphids? I'd assume they are just as dangerous if not more so on a younger plant, just curious if the treatment of the "1st year" plants differs?

Pest control varies with geo. location. The bugs I go up against might be less/more than what you'll have to deal with.
You'll treat 1st year the same as all the other years to follow on your hops.
As you begin to expand, you'll be providing more "condos" to be occupied and your pest control duty begins to go into overtime(last season I had 21 hills with 4-5 rhizomes per hill giving thick growth and room for mites to live). But the overtime pays very well. With a yield last season of 25# dried, I was happy....and have never bought hops for three years
So that's the exciting path you're embarking upon. Enjoy it, it's a blast!

Well a little update. RAIN RAIN RAIN. Since the area I had designated as the hop yard was fully wooded grove of locust trees last year, the ground is still all dirt (and sticks) I've not been able to get on it with equipment to start grading and raking. The result is I have a huge muddy mess.

SOOooo....I've moved my "first row" of hops much closer to the current yard, since it is already graded and free of major debris, I can till it and plant the first row now. This isn't really where I wanted them, though the will now be closer to a watering source, and I'll have about 10X as much room to expand in coming years. Plus I will be able to get equipment out on what was originally supposed to be the "hop yard".

So, the hops will go in the ground this week (weather permitting). Posts will go in this week as well or within the next two weeks at the latest. I'll post pictures once they are in the ground.

5-19 update.

15 out of 16 plants are alive and doing well (one willamette never surfaced) Some of the plants are close to 24" tall.

I've had a hard time getting the equipment up to the house to put the 20' poles in the ground, so for the sake of this year, and in the name of root growth I came up with a temporary solution. I've strung aircraft cable from a tree in the middle of the back yard to a tree at the edge of the yard. it's about 80', so I expect some pretty significant saggage, however it should be enough to promote root growth and I can rearrange things once the poles are set.

The two trees I strung the cable from lined up perfectly over the centennials, which means they are running straight up and down to the cable. The Wills are planted ~10' to the south of the cents so they will have to climb at about a 30 degree angle.

I took a few horrible pictures, (I just ordered a canon 20d but it won't be here till tomorrow, so this is the wifes point and shoot).....

Here are the Centennials before I strung the Wills over to the cable.


Here is a 24" centennials (looks smaller in the picture because you can't see the 8"'s the plant is reaching to get to the twine. The Single Wide IPA in the picture can be used for size perspective, however I was using it for thirst reduction.