HELP! What's wrong with my hops?

I've been growing hops for a few years in my backyard. Everything was great in the beginning, but it seems the last 3 years the plants have been doing worse and worse. The leaves are yellowing. Brown spotting. Dying and falling off mostly on the lower half of the vines. What am I doing wrong? Here is a picture of one of the leaves. Eventually it will turn brown entirely.

 

What r you using to condition/fertilize the soil? If they r using up the nutrients it maybe the reason for the decline you r seeing from year to year.

 

That definitely looks to be a severe nutrient deficiency.

 

I've been using Alaskan fish fertilizer. 5-2-1 I believe. Perhaps I need to up the frequency. Maybe to a few times a week. Does it sound overkill? Or should I try a 10-10-10?

 

I use every day miracle Grow and it's 24-8-16

 

I'll give it a try. I think there's still time to save most of the plants. Chinook is doing well. But centennial is affected by far the worst. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Yea you need a stronger fertilizer, i use the 24-8-16 on my first years when they started yellowing and stunted growth for nearly a month maybe growing 6" total in a 3 week span. Within a week of doing 1/2Tbps per gallon and dumping an entire gallon on each plant as Duboman suggested i do and they are getting green and taking off...both have grown probably a foot in the last week.

Im going to keep up on them and continue weekly feedings like that until i feel they are happy, which may just be the remainder of this season. I want to make sure they can get big enough to create enough foliage to get tons of energy down to the roots for winter. I tried compost to resurrect them, but the soil area i planted them in apparently was so nutrient deficient because of what was previously planted there(big ass bushes) once they used up all the nutrients in the Compost/Manure mix i planted them in they just stopped growing.

 

One of my hops is showing a couple of leaves that are yellow too. Since it's raining almost every day here now is there an alternative solid fertilizer that I can put on top of the mulch instead of adding even more water? The granules that I have are only 10-10-10

 

I use mostly composted cow sh** (sold as manure but my stuff comes straight off the farm sh** pile) it's piled up at the base and was originally mixed with the soil, they also get frequent shots of spent coffee grounds for nitrogen. I had the same problem until I moved my crowns and started using the stuff.

 

What do you mean with "moving the crowns"? IRC I read somewhere that the lower leaves should be cut off to avoid rotting or such. Is that correct?

 

Once your plant gets like 8-10' tall you can probably trim some of the leaves back, it really depends how bushy your plant is..

Having a bunch of soggy wet leaves on the ground is asking for fungal infections and it gives bugs an easy ramp up your plant.

Atleast for my first year they arent too bushy, so im just pinching off leaves as they start to die or get obliterated by bugs and are useless at helping the plant collect that sweet sun light.

 

Some are at least 10' tall. I have a lot of leaves with little holes but nothing severe. Is there a problem with ants crawling around or should I just leave them be?

 

The crown is the part of the plant directly under the soil that is compried of rhizomes and roots. You can dig it up and move it if you need to. I had to move mine because they where only getting about 6 hours of sun.

 

Oh, ok, thanks Mine get a little more and that seems to suffice.

 

You should send a soil sample to someone. Usually yellowing means you need to add iron but looks like you have more than that. Fertilizer might not help everything. Also do you spray fungicide? This come from 4 years of grape growing