Advice needed: anemic cascade

[thaymond]

I have four plants, Nugget (3rd year), Zeus (1st year), Cascade (1st year), and Chinook (1st year). All 1stvyear plants are crowns from GLH. Nugget is gangbusters, so no problem there. There's 30 plus shoots flying out of the ground, and I'll be trimming her back to the top 6-8 in a day or two. Zeus and Chinook (pictures below) are doing well. Chinook took off and has only 2 bines, but lots of growth, and are nice and thick. Zeus took a few weeks to accept it's new home, but is now throwing shoots all over the place and beginning to climb. No problems there.

Chinook


Zeus


Cascade on the other hand... Is, well, the runt of the litter. It has four shoots, but the leaves are teeny, the bines themselves are super thin, and they're not growing much at all. The last few days we've had high temps, decent sun and some rain, and when I come out to retrain the ones that fall off, cascade is always lying horizontally in the dirt. This poor guy reminds me of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I think I'm going to get a big red ball ornament and hand it from one of the jute wires.

Cascade


All of the soil is exactly the same, I used 1 full bag of mushroom compost, 1 bag of manure, and mixed with topsoil in the raised beds. Judging by the other three, they are all doing quite well and are establishing themselves. Any ideas on next steps or what could be causing it to underperform? Should I hit it with some additional fertilizers, particularly a nitrogen dominant to help establish some more root and green growth? I've been hesitant to fertilize because I wanted roots to take before I did. I planted in mid April, so I should be good, right? Any help or advice is welcome. Thanks!

 

[Pappers_]

I live near you in the SW burbs and my Cascades grow like weeds - so its not the area. I wouldn't start to worry yet, if I understood you correctly, they are first year plants and they are just getting going now. Give them the summer - and see how they do, I suspect they'll be fine.

 

[rgauthier20420]

thaymond,

I've got the same Cascades for GLH and it's exactly the same. They were in pots for about 2 weeks and then moved to the ground about 2 weeks ago. It's got 2 nice long somewhat thin bines and then only like 2-3 other shoots as of now. However, I will note that when we moved the plants from the pots to the ground we got a chance to look at the root structure. The Cascades roots were by far the largest and most developed from what we saw. This is hopeful for growth.

I wouldn't worry about. Maybe the ornament will make it feel more like a home for the little guy and he'll grow a bit more

 

[Robusto]

Hi. How long have your Cascades been in the ground? The first year that my cascades were in the ground (actually big containers)they exhibited the same behavior that yours are showing. I planted mine the first week of May. By the middle of June, they were growing like mad (6-8 inches a day). My harvest was late- I guess that the plants were just establishing a good root structure first.

First year growth was somewhat weak, but the second year growth was great and this year (3rd year) the growth is amazing. I had to do some serious pruning! If your Cascade’s are anything like mine were, then they are probably just trying to establish a good root structure, and once that is in place they will all of a sudden, BOOM- they will shoot up. I wouldn’t worry about them now.

 

[thaymond]

Should I hit them with some 10-10-10? Last year I used that after they started to grow and got good results. Should I use something with primarily N and low in P and K?

 

[cram]

Perhaps, wait on the extra fertilizers until they get bigger. Small plants don't have as much nutrient draw. Plus, your soil mixture looks dark and rich, and the other plants seem to be doing fine, so I'd just ride it out for a bit. For those Cascade bines that are hugging the ground, give them a couple wraps around a vertical twine to climb and I suspect you'll notice them start to climb and thicken up in the next week or two--after that, you may get some stronger bines emerge that you can train to see if they catch up to the first ones.

Different varieties are on different schedules and things are still early in the season. By June, I think things will look much more promising.

 

[thaymond]

I guess I'm not used to working with first year plants. All my others have been 2nd year hand-me-downs that I took care of (hence the 3rd year Nugget). My mother took the Sunbeam and Willamette. I still have 8 oz of sunbeam dry that I have no clue what to use it in that I would like.

So what I'm reading is that cascade has thin bines, which is what I'm experiencing. I know the root system is taking hold, because they aren't withered or appearing diseased or dying. I have it sandwiched between Zeus and Chinook, which are taking off like crazy. Its all the same soil mixture and make-up. I have 3 of the 4 doing very well and cascade is the runt of the group. I will wait them out, and keep an update on them. I was hoping I might get at least a little bit of a harvest from them this year. There's still loads and loads of time, I know, but with the others doing so well, it's tough not to compare them to each other.

 

[thaymond]

Well, being impatient paid off in this instance. Since it was recently planted (mid April) and still not taking off, I dug the bad boy up to see what was causing it to not grow. Sure enough, root rot. I trimmed off the nasty parts, spread the roots out, covered in some dry garden soil and retrained the bines.

We will see what happens next. All my other plants are roughly 3-5' of growth with Cascade stuck at just under a foot. Hopefully this solved that problem.

 

[thaymond]

Its been a week. The recently replanted cascade has grown more than a foot since last week, which is great seeing that she barely grew a whole foot the while month before. I'm adding some diluted blood meal to the peripheral to allow her to start seeking out some nitro food.

 

[MathiasMicrobrew]

Good deal! It sounds like it shld do just fine this year

 

[thaymond]

Big difference frome a few weeks ago. I think she's going to make it.

 

[thaymond]

I think the roots are taking... Thankfully. I'm hoping for good root establishment, so it looks like that's happening.

 

[thaymond]

Update: Cascade did finally recover from its nasty root rot. It's the runt of the four, but is producing several dozen cones and should be ready to harvest in the next few weeks. This pic is a few weeks old, but you get the idea. thank you all for support and suggestions!

 

[thaymond]

Cascade was harvested and yielded 4.4 oz dry. Not bad for a plant that was dying.

Here's a pic of the hops in my oast.