Are you building hop harvesting or drying equipment?

Hey Everyone:

For the 2016 American Hop Convention, the Hop Growers of America (USAHops) is trying to collect data on any commercially available harvesting/drying equipment or components. If you sell equipment or components (i.e. fans, burners, picking fingers) for the harvest or drying of hops, please let us know. We have a survey form for you to fill out. The results will be distributed to all convention attendees.

You can contact me (dan [at] gorstvalleyhops [dot] com) or the Hop Growers of America via FB to receive a copy of the survey.

Eventually, the information should also be placed on their website. So even if you are in the early stages of development, let them know.

Whose info do we have so far?

• Hopharvester
• Bine 3060 (me)
• Questdry dehumidifier

If you know someone with a unit that isn't on this list, please...Please...PLEASE bug them to send in their information. We want to know about every option out there. If you don't know them, post something here and I'll find them.

Thanks everyone,

Dan

OK, I'm having a heck of a time posting this up here, but I have a table with all the equipment I could find, contact information and their status at the moment. I pasted it below as tab delineated. So you should be able to copy it into Excel or Word or whatever and look at it. Of if anyone has a way of doing that, it would be great.

Anyway, I'm still looking for any others with harvesting equipment and the same with drying. I'm also wondering if anyone on here has had contact with Steenland (HH1000), Pompious Plucker (ClarkHollowhops) or the Wolverine harvester guy? I've reached out to them but without any luck.

Thanks





Harvester name Description Manufacturer/Dealer Website Phone/e-mail Equipment status
Bine 3060 Hop Harvester Full harvesting equipment Bine Implement bineimplement.com [email protected] In production 2010-2015, contact for leads on used equipment
Dauenhauer harvesters Large harvesting equipment plus spare parts Dauenhauer Manufacturing dmfg.com 208-928-7411/[email protected] Large scale harvesting equipment as well as spare parts and components (e.g. picking fingers)
HH1000 Full harvesting equipment Steenland Manufacturing steenlandmanufacturing.com [email protected] In production for 2014 season
Hopster HopsHarvester LLC hopsharvester.com 585-326-HOPS/ [email protected] In production for 2014 season
Humulus 1500P Full harvesting equipment 43°Hop Farms [email protected] Beta testing for 2016 harvest season, expected release for 2017
Pompius Plucker Full harvesting equipment clarkhollowhops.com [email protected] Beta tested in 2015
Unknown Rumored to be building harvesting equipment LaGasse Works lagasseworks.com 315-946-9202 Unable to confirm rumor of harvesting equipment
UVM Mobile Hop Harvester Full harvesting equipment University of Vermont uvm.edu/extension/cropsoil/hops [email protected] Open source design with prototype for others to copy
Wolf (used) harvesters Mid-sized harvesting equipment Dauenhauer Manufacturing dmfg.com 208-928-7411/[email protected] Used Wolf harvesting equipment
Wolf (used) harvesters Mid-sized harvesting equipment Wolf Hop Harvesters and other Hop Farming Equipment wolfharvester.com 970-209-8684/[email protected] Used Wolf harvesting equipment plus spare parts
WOLF hop picking machines Mid-sized harvesting equipment WOLF Anlagen-Technik GmbH wolf-geisenfeld.de/en/ +49 8452 99-165/[email protected] New Wolf harvesting equipment
Wolverine Harvester Full harvesting equipment Patrick Comerford 607-661-7473/[email protected] Prototype tested this 2015

If anyone wants me to e-mail this to them, just let me know. I would be more than happy. Eventually this should all be on USAHops website.

Wolverine guy was heard from. He's planning on going into production with the unit.

This is great! I'm not going to the Hop Convention but I'd love to get more info from some of the harvester builders. Their websites arent very forthcoming with the details.

dmunkey said:

This is great! I'm not going to the Hop Convention but I'd love to get more info from some of the harvester builders. Their websites arent very forthcoming with the details.

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You're telling me. Even after you talk to some of them on the phone, its like pulling teeth. I'll update the information here when I get whatever I can get.

Just ask us! Dan and I design equipment for small and medium scale hop growers. Check out Bine Implement. We once produced small scale harvesters and are looking to see if we can aid the even smaller hobby grower.

How was the Hops Convention Dan? Anything interesting out there for us small guys?

Anything interesting? You mean like this...

Yes, that's Charlie. Yep, I had dinner with him. Great guy, fun conversation, one hell of a hangover the next day.

Sorry just had to brag.

Ok, serious response. It was very interesting. There were a lot of "legacy growers", read that as 3rd or 4th generation growers from the large farms. Then there were a number of small scale growers such as us who have been doing it for 4 to 10 years. Finally, a large number of people just looking for info because they want to start growing.

I was amazed at how open and sharing the legacy guys were. You would think there would be resentment at crashing their party but I never felt that. They were happy to answer most questions.

The Hopsharvester guys were there to talk about their machine. After talking with them, I'm more confident that they have a valid product that should work well. They were the only ones there.

We announced that the Bine 3060 wouldn't be produced this year. No time.

It sounded like the supply of used Wolf 140's and 170's is pretty much dried up from Europe. They still have some 220's but those are going fast. Soon, you'll have to find a used one in the US to buy.

Wolf is coming out with a new "modular" oast. It arrives in a single shipping container. Pretty neat but the electric heating coil in it was 330 kW (if I heard correctly), which is a lot of power for most of us. I know it would be more than my farm's electrical service can handle.

There was a lot of discussion on trellis construction methods. The consensus seemed to be go with what works for you. On the plant side, we basically discovered the methods that work for the large scale growers for pest/disease can work for small guys but the timing has to be specific to your field. So everything comes down to trial and error along with experience on your field.

Boy that sound familiar, might want to do it again!

We are the owners of the Pompius Plucker. Sorry we haven't divulged information yet, but we have only tested/used it one season on 2 and 3 year plants. We were happy with it last season (averaged 145 bines/hr) and picked 85-90% once we dialed it in (the last weekend of harvest of course..lol). We are making a couple tweaks this year, and going through one more season with both mature plants and a new acre to make sure all adjustments work. I want to make sure we are 100% happy with it first before thinking of marketing it!

brian4508 said:

We are the owners of the Pompius Plucker. Sorry we haven't divulged information yet...

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Did I send you the form? If so, fill it out whenever and send it to the address in the letter. If not, shoot me a note. They intend to put everything on their website at some point.

Dan

You did, but we are waiting one more year before releasing stuff. Just to be safe/comfortable!

Understandable and probably the right way to go. We held the Bine 3060 for about 3 years for further testing before we released it. It sucks that you have all year to build but then only a short time to test, fail, refine, re-test, re-fail...

Make sure you test it out on a full sized, 4th year chinnok or similar. Something that produces 2 lbs (dry) or more. Running, 1st, 2nd or even a wimpy 3rd year bine doesn't give a true trial.

brian4508 said:

We are the owners of the Pompius Plucker. Sorry we haven't divulged information yet, but we have only tested/used it one season on 2 and 3 year plants. We were happy with it last season (averaged 145 bines/hr) and picked 85-90% once we dialed it in (the last weekend of harvest of course..lol). We are making a couple tweaks this year, and going through one more season with both mature plants and a new acre to make sure all adjustments work. I want to make sure we are 100% happy with it first before thinking of marketing it!

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Great to hear!

Blows me away the concentration of companies building out hop machinery in just this region of NYS.

It's a necessity!

GVH_Dan said:

Wolverine guy was heard from. He's planning on going into production with the unit.

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I met Pat a few weeks ago and saw the harvester run in his shop. I was very impressed. I'm new to hop growing but not new to farm/heavy equipment. Seems as though it is robust and not overly engineered. Looked as if it could run continuously 24/7 if needed. Heavy build quality.

jimmoon said:

I met Pat a few weeks ago and saw the harvester run in his shop. I was very impressed. I'm new to hop growing but not new to farm/heavy equipment. Seems as though it is robust and not overly engineered. Looked as if it could run continuously 24/7 if needed. Heavy build quality.

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Is there an update on this unit going to production?

He was vending next to me at the Ohio hop conference a few years ago and had a unit up and running then so I'm sure you can order one if you're in the market. Another company has their production facility up in Gates: http://www.hopsharvester.com/.

Kinda late to the game here but we have been building our own small portable oasts for the past 15 years. We just can't give up the room to make a permanent oast house. These units are automated or manually operated. We use a variety of electric heating elements with simple controls and exhaust air humidity monitoring.

I have built several for hobbiest farmers but never have gone commercial with them. Is there really a market for small scale oast operations?

-J

Is there a market? I would brag about the pile of cash I've made from selling them but it so minuscule to B-Hoppy's hop candy money.

OK, sarcasm aside...there's a need out there for drying capacity. The problem is that its the LAST thing on people's mind, so the budget is gone.

We offer plans for a tiny oast for free, plans for a simple dryer the size of the daily output of a wolf 170 for $250 or custom build anyone a dryer. you can guess that the requests for the first far outstrip the other two.

Just a quick comment on your design...all those trays make loading and unloading a PIA, don't it? I tried a design like that and spent more time picking them off the floor than anything. Also, it doesn't give you much capacity.