indoor hops

Anyone ever here if you can Hydroponiclly grow hops.Is there a way like many plants to basically grow a short stocky plant that bushes out and gets very heavy flowering? Was in Disney and took a tour and a backroom tour of the Hydroponics they grow and it is UNBELIEVABLE!

I have done a fair bit of apartment based hydroponics, but the trouble you'll face with hops is getting sufficient light. Those vines are sun-greedy, and not getting enough light will only make them try to trellis even more.

The light problem can be fixed... Though expensive, Metal Halide lights (MH) and High Pressure Sodium lights (HPS) put out a lot of light... Also with enough flourescents it is possible as well...

I don't know what spectrum or exactly how many lumens Hops would need, but I'm
Positive it can be done

I'm sure it could be done as well, but taking advantage of mother natures light bulb is going to be the far cheaper option. I myself have always wanted to get into hydroponics. Its funny you mention Disney. I was absolutely blown away by their greenhouse as well. Its pretty cool to know they use most of that food they grow in their restaurants etc.

DaksBrew said:

The light problem can be fixed... Though expensive, Metal Halide lights (MH) and High Pressure Sodium lights (HPS) put out a lot of light... Also with enough flourescents it is possible as well...

I don't know what spectrum or exactly how many lumens Hops would need, but I'm
Positive it can be done

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Sure, it's possible, but have you tried using MH grow-lights on a trellising vine? Not only will the OP consume enough power to run a small freight train (earning him some visits by the DEA), he'll also make that part of his house uninhabitably bright and hot. All the downsides of hydro-growing, with none of the upsides.

Perhaps he can figure out how to keep the plant short and bushy like he mentions, but I wasn't able to.

i can see indoor hop growing drawing som unwanted attention from the local PD. They monitor the power consumsion for things like that.

MalFet said:

I have done a fair bit of apartment based hydroponics, but the trouble you'll face with hops is getting sufficient light. Those vines are sun-greedy, and not getting enough light will only make them try to trellis even more.

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What did you grow them in, and what pH, ppm, how much light did they have, what light cycle did you use, were you able to force flower them.... ???

One thought I had was to train them around a 4ft T12 florescent bulb that was hung vertically. HID lighting has good output per watt, but next to impossible to direct at a bine.
What I think is the key to any of this working; is to determine if we could force them to flower sooner, so they don't get to an unmanageable/unlightable size. It maybe possible, with properly timed lights, to get them producing at 2ft rather than 20.

DrJerryrigger said:

What did you grow them in, and what pH, ppm, how much light did they have, what light cycle did you use, were you able to force flower them.... ???

One thought I had was to train them around a 4ft T12 florescent bulb that was hung vertically. HID lighting has good output per watt, but next to impossible to direct at a bine.
What I think is the key to any of this working; is to determine if we could force them to flower sooner, so they don't get to an unmanageable/unlightable size. It maybe possible, with properly timed lights, to get them producing at 2ft rather than 20.

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None of my attempts to grow hops were successful enough to merit repeating them. I haven't researched this, but I suspect flowering is triggered in part by light color, as is the case for many plants. You could try tweaking your balance of MH and HPS to simulate changing seasons, but I very much doubt that you'll be able to get them to flower at only 2ft. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm skeptical this can work.

I got some feeble plants growing with natural light, but my apartment has got a full-wall south-facing window ten stories above everything else around me. Even with that, I ended up pulling them out because they were stunted.

I work in an office that is open 24/7. Every spring I plant a hop vine in a Large pot by my desk. It grows up a wire I wrapped going up one wall, and around the tops of the three walls of my cube. It never flowers since it never knows what season it is (the lights are on 24/7). It grows to about 18 feet long. Then over Christmas and New Yeas break, it does not get watered and it dies. It is as easy as a weed to take care of, fresh soil and a new root segment in the spring, water good 3 days a week, and keep it wrapping around the wire.

But I do know that some "other" plants can grow 15' but they have (strains) that allow them to sprout-grow,and then by switching to a different type light they begin to mature super fast and producing flowers.If hops could be able to do this I think it would work and still be small enough to direct light .They even have foil paper that bounces all the light around.You might even be able to produce sticky SUPERHOP flowers with tons a AA.

foyboy said:

But I do know that some "other" plants can grow 15' but they have (strains) that allow them to sprout-grow,and then by switching to a different type light they begin to mature super fast and producing flowers.If hops could be able to do this I think it would work and still be small enough to direct light .They even have foil paper that bounces all the light around.You might even be able to produce sticky SUPERHOP flowers with tons a AA.

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I encourage you to pursue this experiment, but remember that the kind of selective breeding you're talking about takes decades (centuries...millenia...). I bet you could make it work eventually, but it's going to be a long slow process. I do this with coffee plants, and it's definitely not for the uncommitted. Plus, the other plant you mention isn't a climbing vine, so getting it to bush out wasn't as much of a stretch.

MalFet said:

None of my attempts to grow hops were successful enough to merit repeating them.

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As far as hydroponics, I'd like to try one (just because I can). I have a little experience with this (have some cucumbers and tomatoes growing in my bedroom right now), but I have never attempted a perennial. Any experiences you have had, as to what worked and didn't, as far as the hydro system could save me a good deal of aggravation.
thanks

Kegerator said:

I work in an office that is open 24/7. Every spring I plant a hop vine in a Large pot by my desk. It grows up a wire I wrapped going up one wall, and around the tops of the three walls of my cube. It never flowers since it never knows what season it is (the lights are on 24/7). It grows to about 18 feet long. Then over Christmas and New Yeas break, it does not get watered and it dies. It is as easy as a weed to take care of, fresh soil and a new root segment in the spring, water good 3 days a week, and keep it wrapping around the wire.

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That is the coolest thing I have heard in a long time.

Okay, I have a little DWC running some veggies, and some rhizomes in the fridge.... That basil wasn't doing so good anyway... I don't think a Cascade will do great in a 3" net cup, but that's all the room it needs for now.

DrJerryrigger said:

As far as hydroponics, I'd like to try one (just because I can). I have a little experience with this (have some cucumbers and tomatoes growing in my bedroom right now), but I have never attempted a perennial. Any experiences you have had, as to what worked and didn't, as far as the hydro system could save me a good deal of aggravation.
thanks

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Sure thing...I used a simple aeroponics system with standard GH nutrients. The seedling came up nicely, but it quickly got leggy with thin foliage. I could see the poor thing climbing for light that it wasn't getting.

MalFet said:

Sure thing...I used a simple aeroponics system with standard GH nutrients. The seedling came up nicely, but it quickly got leggy with thin foliage. I could see the poor thing climbing for light that it wasn't getting.

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By seedlings I assume you mean rhizome bits. Did you use any artificial light?

DrJerryrigger said:

By seedlings I assume you mean rhizome bits. Did you use any artificial light?

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Indeed. They seemed to be growing fine initially. I didn't use any artificial light, and can't really imagine how I would have for a plant that long.

MalFet said:

Indeed. They seemed to be growing fine initially. I didn't use any artificial light, and can't really imagine how I would have for a plant that long.

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Well I've got some tricks up my sleeve for this one...
Where did this thread start? I feel I've hijacked it, sorry. I'll start a new thread on this, if my plant is still alive a few days from now.

The HID lights that a single hop plant would require, especially if it were trained to wrap repeatedly around a tomato cage, would be around 100-250 watts. If the DEA or local police are monitoring houses that are using an extra 250 watts, God help this country.

You can grow extremely short hops that will get cones, if you understand the photoperiod requirements for hops. I will produce cones on plants one foot tall if I expose them to the wrong daylength and intensity. (I'm a propagator and coneset is the last thing I want to see)14 hour-plus photoperiods (long days) combined with cooling soil temps seems to trigger it. Cooling stops upward terminal growth while the photoperiod says form flowers. I don't know how you would do that indoors. though. My experience is in greenhouses and outdoors during the early fall production of plants.

MalFet said:

Perhaps he can figure out how to keep the plant short and bushy like he mentions, but I wasn't able to.

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C'mon you never tried snipping off the terminal growth node to encourage lateral growth? What are we really talking about here anyway?

My neighbor grew these in his house, all natural light. These were taken in early June when they were just babies. By the time August hit they were 40' long. I don't remember what the yield was but it filled a number of drying screens and made a bunch of beer.

mateomtb said:

My neighbor grew these in his house, all natural light. These were taken in early June when they were just babies. By the time August hit they were 40' long. I don't remember what the yield was but it filled a number of drying screens and made a bunch of beer.

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While its definitely cool that he did that, they do look leggy and 40' isnt necessarily a good thing. Stretching that much is an indication that they are light-deprived. Its awesome that he was able to get a good yield, though.

I have mine under 32,000 lumens and they're very bushy. No need to cut off the top growth, just give them LOTS of light.

MalFet said:

Sure, it's possible, but have you tried using MH grow-lights on a trellising vine? Not only will the OP consume enough power to run a small freight train (earning him some visits by the DEA), he'll also make that part of his house uninhabitably bright and hot. All the downsides of hydro-growing, with none of the upsides.

Perhaps he can figure out how to keep the plant short and bushy like he mentions, but I wasn't able to.

Click to expand...

I've been training mine along a flat chicken-wire surface and I run 275 watts of light. Not exactly a DEA red-flag Electrical costs vary by location, but I run them mostly at night and it costs about $8 a month.

The key to keeping them bushy is lots of lumens. My thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/successfully-growing-indoors-298725/

The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right

We have experimented with several plant growth regulators such as diazide, Bonzi, Cycocel, etc, with no luck on height control - the plants are too vigorous and grow through them. The PGR's did initiate onset of cones though.

ASublimeDay said:

I've been training mine along a flat chicken-wire surface and I run 275 watts of light. Not exactly a DEA red-flag Electrical costs vary by location, but I run them mostly at night and it costs about $8 a month.

The key to keeping them bushy is lots of lumens. My thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/successfully-growing-indoors-298725/

The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right

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Good on ya! I hope this works out. If you don't mind, though, I'll wait until harvest to call it a success

I was using 2x250w of light, one MH one HPS. I got little bushy shrubs with dark green leaves, but I only ended up with like half an ounce of dried cones per plant, and even those has low oil levels.

I certainly don't want to dissuade anyone from trying this. I'd love to learn that there's something I missed, or something that I was doing wrong, but my hunch is that I just didn't have enough plant mass to get a normal yield. All cramped up under a light, that seems to be somewhat inevitable.

But, please document your process. If it works out well, I'd certainly give this another shot with different grow parameters.

Did you use the chicken wire method?

ASublimeDay said:

Did you use the chicken wire method?

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I used netting, but same basic principle.

MalFet said:

I used netting, but same basic principle.

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Interesting. How big was your grow space?

ASublimeDay said:

Interesting. How big was your grow space?

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I tried it a couple times, once in the open next to a large south facing window, and another couple times in a standard closet with reflectors. I've had plenty of luck with other kinds of hydroponics, but I gave up on this. Conventional outdoor hops are large plants. There's a lot of bushy green for a relatively small number of cones.

The conclusion I drew (perhaps incorrectly) was that I'd need to find a way to radically up the cone to plant mass ratio if I wanted to get yields worth the time and money involved. I never made much headway in that direction, either in practice or in research. If you can find a solution to that problem, you'll certainly be contributing something significant to the homebrew community.

From what I've read at this forum (and I've read a lot), it is the most energy inefficient way to grow hops, but possible. So... go for it?

Retrofit said:

From what I've read at this forum (and I've read a lot), it is the most energy inefficient way to grow hops, but possible. So... go for it?

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Energy inefficient compared to what? Compared to growing them under natural sunlight in an appropriate climate? Of course, but that's always going to be the case when your light source needs to be plugged in. The reason people want to grow indoors is because we don't all live in the Yakima Valley.

You say you've read that it is possible, though. Can you post some links to people doing it successfully?