I have started on a great thing!

I have started a little hop farm of my own - inside my buddies aquaponics farm. =;>

take a look at the growth these guys have seen!

Here is the first pic of the hops I had at home -2yr - old 2 cascade and 1 nugget - split into 6 different plant each then planted in the media bed. Not bad I only lost two... this pic was taken 031715:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0d68rpualy0yko0/FirstPlant030715.JPG?dl=0

next is a pic from early may shortly after the newer rhizomes arrived (magnum, willamette, and centennial):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ey7zef08swu1bsk/IMG_20150503_154231_472.jpg?dl=0

next is a pic from early may again but it shows how little these ladies were at one time:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vut8vqzia1f2q2o/IMG_20150503_154254_459.jpg?dl=0

this one is a week after I turned down the amount of water that was streaming through the beds a given moment - I saw a incredible amount of growth for all the vines but the newer ones are in the "char" (black bed):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/34w064333n9l370/IMG_20150511_131720_134.jpg?dl=0

now here is more growth by the end of may:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3ms8xuj7fi0h43/IMG_20150529_122849_292.jpg?dl=0
and again from another angle:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s776m6usahet91i/IMG_20150529_123040_571.jpg?dl=0

and one more by today when I took em:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0f81kw3tvork359/IMG_20150607_145838_711.jpg?dl=0
and from another angle:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l3rymu14l01quen/IMG_20150607_145927_828.jpg?dl=0

Those are very healthy looking plants. How much vertical space do they have to grow in that building?

Nice setup !! But...

You will have a lot of fun climbing up there to force them to grow horizontally... or lot of fun to untangle everything at the end of the season.

Will the hops put the other plants in the shade ?

beernutz said:

Those are very healthy looking plants. How much vertical space do they have to grow in that building?

Click to expand...

From the corner of the bottom portion of the roof glass to the floor is ~10' - to the top it is ~20'. That is what I said about the positioning of these but hey - it's not my place and it is for somewhat free...

DarkCoder said:

Nice setup !! But...

You will have a lot of fun climbing up there to force them to grow horizontally... or lot of fun to untangle everything at the end of the season.

Will the hops put the other plants in the shade ?

Click to expand...

Exactly what I have been saying to this friend of mine since it began - as a result I am just going to have to grab my very tall ladder and get that holding line higher into the roof structure so as to put more of a tilt on them.

Good question.
Answer: The kinds of kale that my friend is growing like the shade - perhaps this is why he asked me to join in. =;>

Thanks guys - I appreciate the feedback.

The reason the incredible growth is the aquaponics system which has fish that drop their fertilizer right into the water stream. High in Nitrogen apparently then he introduces regular air into the system to keep it aerated also.

Later on towards harvest - I am not going to be able to ask him to tone down the Nitrogen and I am afraid to think of what might happen to the finer flavors of the hops if we don't figure a way out of that situation... or am I being too nervous?

Ok the harvest season is done!

So I put in 25 rizhomes...
and got about 24 lbs of fresh hops this year... not bad for a pilot project. =;>

Based on the measurements i got back from alpha analytics testing it looks like I am going into business next year.
My plan is for over 3k plants next year which should put me at over 4500lbs done in a half acre hothouse.

If anyone up here has experience in altering myrcene and humulene levels please contact me asap.

Anyone want some fresh hops FedEx'd to them next year?