South Florida Hop Growing

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
StanJohnson said:
84 inches. Wow! You must be doing something right. Mine are 2 months old and the longest bine is only about 3 feet high. What's your secret?

Remember, three bines totally 84 inches. No secrets here. Just planted on the South side of the house where it gets shade by early afternoon. I panted using Miracle Grow potting mix that had some sort of 6 month fertilizer. And I hate snails and slugs with no reservation and nuke them first and ask questions later. Snail and slug getta plus is my weapon of choice.
 
Remember, three bines totally 84 inches. No secrets here. Just planted on the South side of the house where it gets shade by early afternoon. I panted using Miracle Grow potting mix that had some sort of 6 month fertilizer. And I hate snails and slugs with no reservation and nuke them first and ask questions later. Snail and slug getta plus is my weapon of choice.

Ooops. I went back and read your original post. Must be the bomber of Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti:drunk: I've got a couple of bines that are doing good. The rest are short, 2 feet or less. I'm kinda just letting them grow since they are first year rhizomes. I hope to get enough hops from them this year to do some wet hops additions for aroma to a brew this fall.
 
StanJohnson said:
Ooops. I went back and read your original post. Must be the bomber of Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti:drunk: I've got a couple of bines that are doing good. The rest are short, 2 feet or less. I'm kinda just letting them grow since they are first year rhizomes. I hope to get enough hops from them this year to do some wet hops additions for aroma to a brew this fall.

Same here. I think it is strange that 1 rhizome put up 3 bines and the other just put up 1. Will let them go and see what happens.
 
Yea probably near 50 so far on all 4 bines combined. Every new set of leaves has come with 2 more cones. The bines are about 12-16 ft. Container grown from crown, sprouts broke ground mid march. Im pretty stoked to say the least, bring on the cascade :ban:
 
Yea probably near 50 so far on all 4 bines combined. Every new set of leaves has come with 2 more cones. The bines are about 12-16 ft. Container grown from crown, sprouts broke ground mid march. Im pretty stoked to say the least, bring on the cascade :ban:

Banana dancing is just gloating :) 12-16 ft and hops. Damn. I'd be stoked too.
 
Same here. I think it is strange that 1 rhizome put up 3 bines and the other just put up 1. Will let them go and see what happens.

Of my two rhizomes, the last one to break ground has the most growth. It has more and longer bines. I was worried about it at the beginning. Letting them go worked for me.

I need to figure out this "multi-quote" thing.
 
Definitely gloating haha..... Are you keeping it well watered? Mine has been a really thirsty plus the high humidity. Once they take off they take off but until then they are getting their roots ready for it and establishing its crown. They also love Nitrogen
 
Any Idea what is up with my Cascade? All my other hops are doing just fine and i haven't done anything different to any of them. Used mostly good organic soil mixed with mushroom and bat compost.

Cascade leaf.jpg


hops.jpg
 
I got little cones on my puny little first year plants!!! Bout as big as a pencil eraser right now, but cones none the less. I'm thrilled...
Bob
 
Rbeckett said:
I got little cones on my puny little first year plants!!! Bout as big as a pencil eraser right now, but cones none the less. I'm thrilled...
Bob

Congrats! Pictures please! What I thought were going to be cones on mine turned into sidearms.
 
Anyone know of something I can spray to prevent downy mold on my hops while they are coning? Im starting to have issues with it on my peppers and I dont want my hop harvest being ruined by cones full of downy mold. I also dont want to spray a fungicide thats going to ruin and or kill my cones, be it by damaging them or making them chemical ridden.

If I can sum up my hop growing experience in South FL, its; if you can fight off all the bugs and critters then you can grow hops. Damn are they relentless.

And heres some hop porn from my Cascade..

Hop Cone Frosty.jpg
 
I have around 12 dime sized hop flowers that are developing but several buds that dried up. Any thoughts about water or fertilizer or if this is normal? Plants are first year cascade and are ok healthy otherwise.
 
shataway said:
I have around 12 dime sized hop flowers that are developing but several buds that dried up. Any thoughts about water or fertilizer or if this is normal? Plants are first year cascade and are ok healthy otherwise.

I had this happen with a few of mine. I don't have a for sure answer but I got the feeling it was the sun burning them after it rained. Could this be your problem too?
 
I dont think so. Most of my flowers are near the end where it gets the most sun. The dried up cones are about halfway up where it gets sun for the morning only. Maybe thats the answer...
 
I'm so glad to see such a lively discussion in this thread, it is what I was hoping would happen to get some info out there for florida growers. Sorry I've ben missing for so long but my plants are growing strong and when I can get some photos ill post an update. Cheers everyone
 
After reading the post from The east coast, I decided to give it a try. I ordered a bunch and should get them in march. From what I have been reading stick with the c's (centineal, chinook etc)

And again for those considering doing this, make sure you get the morning sun and afternoon shade to protect from that extreme heat. I think you would have the most luck with hearty C type hops. If my very limited experience is any indication of how it works, Cascades rocked and I had no luck from the nugget, which I might want to trade for some other variety when people on here start digging theirs up!!

I think this is the impression most who have tried in FL came to.
 
Thanks for the info KeyWest. Do you have to worry about squirrels or other critters eating the hops?
 
I didn't worry too much about critters, I think the ducks were messing with some of the small sprouts once but once they start growing they will be several feet in a week or two and big enough to hold their own
 
Sri Lanka Weevils have attacked my hops! $&@/:;!!

Ok just two leaves chewed on yesterday but it seems like it ate a lot for one day. I am trying dish soap spray to keep him away. Any thoughts?
 
Since Hops is a close relative to Marijuana has anyone tried growing indoors with Hydro Gear in Florida? Can you run them through the attic with grow lights?
 
Thirstease said:
Since Hops is a close relative to Marijuana has anyone tried growing indoors with Hydro Gear in Florida? Can you run them through the attic with grow lights?

If you have the space I guess in theory it's possible. I don't think you could build an adjustable ballast tall enough indoors. Plus the speed they grow, the bottoms of the bines wouldn't get enough light as the top gets taller.
 
I am very happy I found this thread! I am fairly new to brewing but am a life long landscaper. I live in southwest Florida and badly wanted to try growing my own hops. In April I bought two nugget hop rhizomes, I chose nugget because they are supposed to be disease resistant in comparison to others. One of the problems I was worried about is that most of the places you can buy hop rhizomes from are cutting them in the spring which is the wrong time of year to plant something like that in Florida due to the heat. What I decided to do to deal with this problem is plant in pots on the east side of the house so that they would only get morning sun. I know hops are supposed to be planted in full sun but I felt the afternoon sun here is just too much. I used top soil mixed with compost to plant the rhizomes in and also mounded it at the top before planting. Once a month I have been applying a liquid fertilizer called fertiactyl gz pro which is packed with micro nutrients to promote healthy root growth. A Freind of mine gave me this stuff( I guess it is what the local tomato farms are using). My only expectation was to hopefully transplant these into the ground in the fall once the whether was better for growing hops. I used bamboo and twine to build a trulles which is working nicely. Well they have gone crazy and just this past week started producing buds all over them. Now this presents me with a problem I did not anticipate having to deal with this soon, I have no idea how to brew with whole hops. I have only used pellet hops. Sorry for the long winded post( got excited ).

By the way there is an old fashion way to control snails I think you all will like. Take a bowl and fill it with any kind of beer, put it out by your hops and all the snails will happily crawl in, get drunk and die!
 
Ive read that you use 5x the weight if they are still wet.... Other than that I assume you would use the same amount of dried whole leaf cones, in weight of course, as you would pellets. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
I only had enough to brew one batch last year. I dryed them between a window screen by leaving them on my kitchen for three days or so. Then used the dry weight for my numbers and guess the alpha.

@ trombly128
I used nuggets and got almost no yield so if you have more success with them please let us know!
 
These are pictures of my nugget hop vines-planted rhizomes almost 2 months ago. Sorry about the quality of the pics it was raining when I took them.

image-4098347253.jpg


image-1649072420.jpg


image-817270861.jpg


image-4084584594.jpg


image-2892909004.jpg


image-1208660869.jpg
 
How much cone development do you have? My bines grew well but I think I only had a small handful of cones after it was ask said and done. The first year of cascades were a different story though, two large bowls full
 
Yes I leave those up(side garage door, not used).

The cone development just started a week and a half ago and I would say there are about 50 so far. They are all at different stages but it looks like there are a lot more to come. If these make it through the summer heat without developing some type of fungus from the heat I plan to try many different varieties. I'm glad to see other people are tackling this in Florida even though everyone says they can't grow here. I was amazed at how limited information there is for growing in the south.
 
KeyWestBrewing said:
Ive read that you use 5x the weight if they are still wet.... Other than that I assume you would use the same amount of dried whole leaf cones, in weight of course, as you would pellets. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

I listened to a Brewing Network podcast where it was stated that fresh wet hops are 60 to 80 percent water if I remember correctly. That means 2.5 to 5 times the weight of dry hops if using wet.
 
Found a video on YouTube of a guy growing hydroponic hops in Arizona. His Nugget looks to be doing quite well.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
shataway said:
Sri Lanka Weevils have attacked my hops! $&@/:;!!

Ok just two leaves chewed on yesterday but it seems like it ate a lot for one day. I am trying dish soap spray to keep him away. Any thoughts?

Dish soap may not be enough for these guys. Since I am considering a real pesticide while I have cones/flowers, does anyone have an approximate harvest time for South Florida hops? I want to pace the applications so I dont use too much and it is gone by the harvest.

I have seen vids that suggest when the cones are crackly like paper they are ready. I am looking for an approximate time of year for South Florida hops.

Thanks!
 
Propagating 2 sidearms from my Cascade today giving me 5 plants, 4 of which will have been propagated from the 1 I was given. I dont know why more people dont do this.
 
KeyWestBrewing said:
Propagating 2 sidearms from my Cascade today giving me 5 plants, 4 of which will have been propagated from the 1 I was given. I dont know why more people dont do this.

I tried this but not very seriously. I cut a few sidearms a couple of days ago and just stuck them in the ground.
 
shataway said:
Dish soap may not be enough for these guys. Since I am considering a real pesticide while I have cones/flowers, does anyone have an approximate harvest time for South Florida hops? I want to pace the applications so I dont use too much and it is gone by the harvest.

I have seen vids that suggest when the cones are crackly like paper they are ready. I am looking for an approximate time of year for South Florida hops.

Thanks!

Not sure on the harvesting, I've read once they have produced lupulin glands. As for the bug issue- try an actual soap insecticide product like soy soap, the key is multiple applications till they are gone. Best to apply in the evening as most pest like this feed at night.
 
Trombly128 said:
Not sure on the harvesting, I've read once they have produced lupulin glands. As for the bug issue- try an actual soap insecticide product like soy soap, the key is multiple applications till they are gone. Best to apply in the evening as most pest like this feed at night.

I definitely need to apply something stronger. I came home and thumped 6 of them off. The damage is more obvious now.

My cones are only dime size, are starting to get crackly, but dont appear to have glands yet. After handling the cone i smelled my finger ( ha ha) but no hoppy smell. I am going to apply insecticide tomorrow pm and wait the prescribed time before considering harvest.

Thanks!
 
Back
Top