damn!!!these are pictures i took a few minutes ago of one of my neomexicanus fields. These are all neomexicanus, no idea how many accessions. 1,2,3,4 and 5th year growth, we have been adding to the collection for 5 years. Our dna lab will be arriving in november. That should help greatly with identification. Then we plan to brew 2.5 gallon single hop batches using a session ipa recipe with our zymatic picobrew system throughout the winter to determine brewing characteristics of each hop. I'm really curious about the vines that starting starting out raspberry colored. They are late forming. I haven't seen this before. And my luck is changing, at least in this field. Only one hermaphrodite out of 450. Better odds than last year.
We've had a warm winter and a few of my Willow Creek neomexican hop Hines have poked up out of the ground. We are forecasted to have a hard freeze later this week. Does anyone know the freeze tolerance of these hops? I'm planning on covering them, but didn't know if I needed to do anymore with Christmas lights.
These hops grow wild at high altitudes, they are very comfortable with cold. The wild patch near me is under snow at 9000' for months. In fact my Neomexicanus didn't come up the second year at all, but that winter we had a storm that covered my hop garden with 3' of snow, the next spring they did very well. Besides, if the do get killed by a freeze, it only affects those shoots, they will be replaced almost immediately.I would say a light frost would be okay, but a hard freeze might not be so great. It'd probably be best to cut them back until you can be relatively certain of warmer temps. We had some warmer weather lately, so I was afraid I'd have similar problems. Fortunately mine stayed underground.
These hops grow wild at high altitudes, they are very comfortable with cold. The wild patch near me is under snow at 9000' for months. In fact my Neomexicanus didn't come up the second year at all, but that winter we had a storm that covered my hop garden with 3' of snow, the next spring they did very well. Besides, if the do get killed by a freeze, it only affects those shoots, they will be replaced almost immediately.
My situation is different from normal hop growers. I live in the semi desert at 3100'. We'll have weeks of temps no lower than 45 or 50F, with highs in the 80's and 90's, everything is looking good and then we have 3 nights in the teens. All the fruit drops from my trees, my hops bines turn brown and die, but in a week or 2 new shoots appear and all is well. Unfortunately the fruit doesn't come back but there's always hope for next year!Not being much of a gardener, I'm just going by what I've read in books and what "they" say. The common line is to keep cutting back shoots until after the last frost, but I've had shoots live through frost and still give me loads of cones come fall. I'm just not willing to apply my own anecdotal evidence with frost to a hard freeze.
Again, from books, it seems that plants put so much effort into sending up and maintaining new shoots that they're unprepared for a sudden freeze, meaning they may not be able to cope with a harsh freeze.
All that said, my hops have been pretty hardy over the last few years, and again, I don't consider myself a "real" gardener, so take all this with a grain of salt.
Gulf Coast Neomex update
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Multihead aka The Beast (this was last week, already a second shoot this tall)
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Willow Creek got a later start than Multihead last year, I'll be interested to see how it's growth and cones differ from Multihead.
The Multihead grows quite different from cascade, NB, and Saaz. Have not gotten any of the dual cones that gave it the name, but it seems very "bushy" and vigorous, like a hydra, sending out way more bines that the others. The cones are long and thin, seem to ripen much quicker than the plump Cascade ones. With cascade I know I have time to harvest when it opens up, and I can see the yellow lupulin, wait for it to be dry and crinkle-y. Since the Multihead seems more torpedo-shaped, don't open up like cascade, it's harder to tell when they are going to stop growing, and they seemed to turn brown and overripe quicker than cascade. It didn't produce a ton, or many big cones, but I'm hopeful this year will be better in that regard.
The ripe Multihead smelled very pleasant, like juicyfruit gum and ripe figs, and intense. You could smell it when you were within a few feet of the bine, without rubbing a cone in your hands. Waaay different from the distinct grapefruit-floral-citrus of the cascade.
For first year growers in southern latitude, watch those Multiheads, mine kept producing a few cones until late December
I see one of our sponsors is setting up Pre orders. Got me thinking of they do well where I live.
Neomexicana is a true American hop. Not transplanted from Europe.
So far on my Google searches, the variants are Multi head, Neo1, Amallia, and Willow Creek.
Multi is peachy. Neo1 is lemon/citrus and Amallia is earthy.
I am willing to buy a few to test out. I am wondering if anyone else planted them.
I bought several different ones, and they did pretty well last year but none of them have come up yet, and my Cascades already have cones on them.I bought two hop plants last fall from http://www.greatlakeshops.com (one multihead, one amalia). The multihead has already sprouted. The amalia is still dormant (or dead). If it's dead, it's probably my fault. I planted at about the worst time for my climate.
The plants arrived in good shape and Great Lake Hops gave good customer service.
They found the plants in New Mexico / Colorado region.
High elevation, extreme hot and cold seasons. I am guessing dry and humid conditions as well.
Only one that I cannot find is multi head hop. I hope a vendor will sell that rhizome. A peach flavored hop. Sounds yummy.have.
Hello Nagmay, I've asked the USDA on numerous occasions for both seed and rhizomes of native North American hops, but they have never sent me anything.
I am trying to collect male plants for breeding purposes. If you could send me some seeds or rhizomes I would greatly appreciate it.
If anybody could send me some male hop rhizomes I would be more then willing send back my hybrid rhizomes in the case that I am successful in crossbreeding the hops.
Current Hops list for 2019 with some late fall entries (moms for eventual breeding program)
Willing to trade for males, dwarf species, or any hop with interesting flavors that are not currently growing here.
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