What's your favorite fertilizer?

I've got a couple hop crowns that I planted earlier this year. They each have 5 bines between 5 and 6.5 feet tall right now. I noticed that my Sterling has started to get a bit of yellow on its leaves, and after doing some research I am pretty sure that it is a nitrogen deficiency. I'm a little surprised that these guys have gobbled up all the nutrients from the soil and fertilizer I added when I planted these a month and a half ago. It must take a lot of energy to grow a combined 6 feet of plant material per week!

Anyways...

For those of you who have some experience growing hops, what is your favorite fertilizer. I know that compost is popular, but (A) by the time I start a compost pile and allow it to do its thing, I'll be harvesting already and (B) it seems that you can control the types of nutrients better in order to maximize performance with the purchased stuff. I.E. High N early in the year and high K mid to late year.

Do you like to mix up the fertilizer you use during the year? Do you apply slow release fertilizer and then spray the leaves with Miracle Gro?

Not sure about spraying the leaves directly with miracle gro, its a 24-8-16 formula that might be a bit high on the N side of things to go directly on the leaves; maybe someone with more experience growing hops knows better than me as I'm also a first year grower. From what I've read on some of the other topics in this thread seems that water issues (too much or too little) can sometimes cause the yellowing. Also if the yellowing is spotty you may wanna check for mites or aphids on the underside of the leaves as they like to drain the plants of their juices.

Keep us posted what you find and what your solution is, I think all the information in these threads has taught me more than some of the pdf booklets I've found.

alaska fish fertilizer

Most yellowing is over watering or potassium deficiency. Get a soil analysis. Most local gardening shops will do it free. I think Lowes/Home Depot sell a kit as well. Then you'll know exactly what your working with.

I always like chicken poop. Going to raise chickens this year and i will have all i can use for free

http://www.4hydroponics.com/nutrients/items.asp?ItemNo=medusasMagic

Just picked up some of this stuff. It seems real light at 2-5-2 and recommends using at at every watering. All 5 of my plants came up real early in March since the temps got into the 70's for close to a week straight here in upstate NY. I covered them with leaves when the frost came back and will uncover them within the next few weeks when the threat of a deep frost is gone. My plants are all coming upon their second year, so I hope this stuff will give them what they need to take off.

No Miracle Grow...in my opinion. I am opposed to the chemical aspect of miracle grow or any other typical home depot type fertilizer or pesticide.

Your best bet is like snccoulter said - chicken poop, or other animal manure.
You can buy bags of compost, or something like that, but your soild is off balance.

Putting something like miracle grow on there does nothing except help your plants for a short period of time, but it doesn't fix the soil problem you are having. If you build up the nutrients in the whole bed where the hops are planted then you will allow it to pull all the nutients it needs as needed.

So to wrap it up, an animal manure will help with the nitrogen problem, but a good compost like a mushroom compost will benefit.

We have like 15 dairies in the area. I think I will try to get a truck load of poop for the garden and a friend is giving me his 35 gallon trash can of spent grain that has been composting for who knows how long. so the veggie garden should be crazy this spring/summer into fall. We could not use all of the stuff last year so I am getting a canning setup this summer the garden is 15X25.

snccoulter said:

We have like 15 dairies in the area. I think I will try to get a truck load of poop for the garden

Click to expand...

be sure to compost it for a while first - do not put fresh manure directly on your garden. it needs to age out first for a few months.

Chicken **** is best (composted that is, it'll burn the plants if it's not).
As far as things you can buy at a store, get a bag of dehydrated cow poop. Just top dress you're plants. That should be all you need to do.

Oh out here they have large piles of it composted and covered with tarps all dried out and a lot of it is sold to the farmers in the semi truck load.

Sounds to me like you need to do a little blue gill fishin!

I use compost, and augment with some blood meal during the early part of the season for some additional slow-release N.

Wow, thanks for all the quick replies. I was looking into more specifics of what might be ailing my hops and I found a really great troubleshooter for hops:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grow-Hops/message/4302
EDIT: It's odd, clicking on the link won't bring you to the correct address. You have to cut and paste the .url

I took a closer look at my plants, and the yellow leaves go from about mid-height up to the tip, so it looks like I might have an iron deficiency. I still want to add a bit more nitrogen because I think it would be good for the plants, too.

Unfortunately, although I do enjoy fishing, it's not something I am equipped to do at the moment, so no bluegills for my hops this year (and I'm not sure if they are even native to northern Illinois). What is the best way to add some iron to the soil - outside of hiding a bunch of rusty nails right under the soil?

Oh, and in case it matters, here is what my soil consists of now. The native soil has 1 to 1.5 feet of topsoil with clay underneath. I created a raised bed with a 2:1:1 mixture of potting soil, native soil and mushroom compost. This was laid out in a bed about 1.5 feet thick on top of some turned soil that I had added grass clippings and leaves to last fall.