Hop Plant Help

[Aboutsik]

Hi Folks,

I'm hoping someone could lend some insight on troubleshooting an issue I'm having with a first year Mt. Hood Hop plant. The rhizome arrived about a month ago, and the first 2-3 weeks I had it in a container, it quickly shot up and when it reached about 5-6" I transplanted it into my garden. At first, it did great, it continued to grow the first few days, but then out of nowhere, the tip of the plant turned brown and stopped growing up the twine I had strung up for it. The garden gets full sun, and I have a second year Chinook plant in the same garden that did phenomenal last year and is continuing to do great this year as well, so I don't think sun or soil is the issue. My only guess is that we had some heavy rains recently in Chicago and I thought maybe it was oversaturated, but it was followed by several days of full sun and the plant has not bounced back.

I'm looking for troubleshooting recommendations, because at this point I don't think it will bounce back, I haven't seen any growth for about a week now. Do you think if I trim it back other shoots will come up? Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[day_trippr]

Greetings, @Aboutsik. Welcome to the forums at Homebrew Talk

You likely can't see this from your end but this is what I see viewing your post. Looks like you need to open the access rights to have those images appear to "us"...

As to your problem, I never ran into anything similar. I had rhizomes that flat out did not produce emergent sprouts but none that sprouted then died...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Hops are resilient and I think your intuition may be correct about rain effecting it. Doing a quick Google search pointed back to hbt Hoping for sunny days may be best cure. I always find babying is not the answer but nutrient help seems an option. Not quite the answer but learning is half the fun when things work out

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/members/joemarsh88.193872/

 

[Aboutsik]

Greetings, @Aboutsik. Welcome to the forums at Homebrew Talk

You likely can't see this from your end but this is what I see viewing your post. Looks like you need to open the access rights to have those images appear to "us"...

View attachment 848691

As to your problem, I never ran into anything similar. I had rhizomes that flat out did not produce emergent sprouts but none that sprouted then died...

Cheers!

Whoopsie! Thank you for the heads up, I just adjusted that

 

[Aboutsik]

Hops are resilient and I think your intuition may be correct about rain effecting it. Doing a quick Google search pointed back to hbt Hoping for sunny days may be best cure. I always find babying is not the answer but nutrient help seems an option. Not quite the answer but learning is half the fun when things work out

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/members/joemarsh88.193872/

I appreciate the insight, and I agree I don't want to baby it too much, especially because the leaves and stem all still look healthy, just going to add some hop fertilizer and hope for prolonged sun for now

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Aaaah. Plenty of green there. Searching Chicago and Mt hood on this forum shows that Mt Hood likes your zone. Rhizomes like a little bit of mound to grow up for sun and down for water. I still believe it will probably fight to find what it likes

 

[day_trippr]

Hop growing is 90% maximizing direct sunlight. They do not like shade at all. The rest is keeping predators (mites and aphids) at bay until harvest is done...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Hop growing is 90% maximizing direct sunlight. They do not like shade at all. The rest is keeping predators (mites and aphids) at bay until harvest is done...

Cheers!

Weeeelllll it's all based about zones and sun. My yard grows nothing due to its shade. However a English/German type noble hop like Northern Brewer loved my cool shady area. Didn't expect it to grow but it was like a weed within a year. I did see on this forum that a couple of people in Chicago grew mt hood in a sunny area. So it seems he has the right growing conditions except a bunch of rain. I do think the majority of hops do like sunny locations. Kind of based on its breed

 

[Northern_Brewer]

My only guess is that we had some heavy rains recently in Chicago and I thought maybe it was oversaturated, but it was followed by several days of full sun and the plant has not bounced back.

I'm looking for troubleshooting recommendations, because at this point I don't think it will bounce back,

A hop plant is never going to freak out over some rain, they're thirsty things. Whereas the first thing I see is some holes in the topmost full leaves. So it looks like something is eating them, but it's not something we get here, so it's over to the US contingent...

But I'd look carefully on the underside of the leaves to see if you can find the culprit.