Hop Picking

Hi,

I'm trying to determine the best way to harvest a lot of hops rapidly, without investing in very expensive specialized machinery. How do you proceed to manually harvest relatively large quantities of hops?

The other day, I thought of the blueberry picker: http://previews.123rf.com/images/ad...A-comb-to-harvest-blueberries-Stock-Photo.jpg

Would this work with hops? Is there something better?

I'd probably grow them on 8 foot high hedgerows, if it matters.

From what I have seen here on HBT people cut down the whole plant and then harvest the hops at a convenient counter or table.

Not sure if it would work. Because I’ve been picking blueberries with that "device" Difference is, blueberries fall off nicely from the plant, leaving leaves and branches behind, where as hop cones might not be best thing to use it on as they might get damaged or just slide through the gaps. If in doubt do a small test, see if it works. My option would be also cut the bine down and get some friends to help.
Let us knwo how it goes if you do use the picker!

I doubt that would work, except with varieties that nearly jump off the bine (e.g. perle). You would get the tines all snagged up in the sidearms.

Search this forum for harvesting equipment and then build your own. Separation isn't too difficult, though you will need to bring the bines in. If they get chewed up and left in the field, they are ripe for disease and infestation.

That's part of the issue: there's no convenient place to bring them "in" near where I want to grow them. Picking them off the bines means a much lower volume to transport to a location for drying, and thus my car (with a small trailer towed at most) would suffice. I was hoping I could use some hand tool to scrape them off the bines and then use an apple bag or something (like this: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ea/21/6c/ea216c5827ccc78014635a327f77cfcb.jpg ) to quickly harvest by hand. I'm trying to determine the potential for producing (relatively) large volumes with minimal investment.

Focusing mostly on varieties that are easier to harvest like Perle is certainly feasible.

There's no rule that says you have to put your harvester inside but it is much more comfortable and your equipment will last longer.

If you really want to do this in the field, I suggest you put together something the will strip the bines. Look at the Crafty Hop Plucker or our Bine 3060 for ideas. you can make something small that will run off a drill or other electric motor. Get the mixture of cones, leaves and whatnot stripped and then you can decide where to do your separation. I understand your idea of the apple bag but it won't work. Unless you are handpicking, you won't get just cones. It will be a mixture of everything. Even a hand tool for scraping will take along a good percentage of leaf and stem. in the end, that needs to be less than 6% of your total content.

Just googled this up... Evidently UVM has an extension program in hoppery that wrote a presentation in 2013:
http://blog.uvm.edu/cwcallah/files/...ere-2013-12-07-Morrisville-NY-CALLAHAN-r2.pdf

Interesting document. I'll give it some more thoughts.

Even if the handpicker picks up some debris, the main idea is to lower startup investment and reduce volumes to haul. I could probably put something together myself to then sort the hops from the debris.

Apimyces said:

Even if the handpicker picks up some debris...

Click to expand...

It will pick up debris. The best strippers tend to bring out a lot of debris, 40% of the mass or more, because it needs to get everything off the bine and broken up into individual cones. Honestly, stripping is pretty easy. Sorting is the hard part.

Again, there are several threads on this forum and some on a Facebook group called Hop Growers. Read all of them and learn from others mistakes. Then make about 3 different prototypes of what you think will work and try them out next fall.