Any theories here. Possible stalled hop growth

[olotti]

So first year transplants in big pots with about 14-16' growth on one plant and the other was just a rhizome and got about 8' up before it lost the tip but it's actually flowering and now has surpassed the larger plant in actually forming the burrs into cones. Any idea why? I feel like the larger plant actually has stalled, produced lots of burrs but they don't see to be developing into cones and they've been present for almost a month while the smaller plants burrs are prob only 2-3 weeks old and as you'll see in the pic already shaping into cones. The larger plant has 6 bines split off on two ropes so three and three, did I use to many bines to where now it's hard for the plant to focus its energy into one particular bine to help producing cones so it's either stalled out or is moving real slow. I started hitting both plants with a bloom booster with 54% phosphorus to help with flower/ cone development, they just got the second application last week as its a bi weekly food source. Anyway the first pic is of the smaller plant with only one bine and the second pic is the larger plant with 6 bines. Thanks for any thoughts. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1438466247.115838.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1438466270.624887.jpg

 

[Snowden]

Sounds like you did the right thing with starting applications of high phosphorous fertilizer. Phosphorous is often the limiting macronutrient for flowering, be it hops, fruit trees, or ornamental plants.

I also have a first year plant (Cascade), and am surprised to be getting a decent yield this far; from everything I have read online and anecdotes I have heard from my homebrew club members, this is often not the case.

We have had 90 degree sunny days the last week and a half or so here in NE Ohio, and I have been shocked at the sidearm production that I am seeing. Many of them have produced burrs that are quickly developing into cones, while the main bine seems slow to produce cones. I bet the loss of the apical bud on your one plant has facilitated flower production.

 

[olotti]

Sounds like you did the right thing with starting applications of high phosphorous fertilizer. Phosphorous is often the limiting macronutrient for flowering, be it hops, fruit trees, or ornamental plants.

I also have a first year plant (Cascade), and am surprised to be getting a decent yield this far; from everything I have read online and anecdotes I have heard from my homebrew club members, this is often not the case.

We have had 90 degree sunny days the last week and a half or so here in NE Ohio, and I have been shocked at the sidearm production that I am seeing. Many of them have produced burrs that are quickly developing into cones, while the main bine seems slow to produce cones. I bet the loss of the apical bud on your one plant has facilitated flower production.

Could it be that there's just so much production in the larger plant it's just taking longer for the burrs to cone? I also was surprised that like you mention when the smaller bine lost its apical bud it started flowering like 2 weeks later and I wasn't even expecting it to do anything. It's now even producing sidearms farther down on the bine. I'm thinking that there's only one bine to focus all that energy into so it's getting every last bit of the nutrients while the other plant has 6 bines that are all showing burrs to spread the love too.

 

[olotti]

Really no one has any advice.

 

[feinbera]

Water, fertilize, wait. Those look like great burrs, there's a ton of 'em, and each one's got a ton of the little dangly bits. Especially if it hasn't already hit the top of the rope, that plant's got other things on its mind, but it'll get around to turning those burrs into cones eventually. Maybe you're right, and it's spread a little thin with six bines, but there's not a heck of a lot you can do about that at this point – if you get lots of sad, little cones, you can try just two bines per rope next year.