1st Year Hop Experience

[LagerLover78]

I got 3 oz from my chinook and roughly 3 oz from my cascade. Both first year plants, so you doubled mine! Hoping to brew a harvest ale in the next week or two.

That is seriously a killer harvest! Between my Chinook and Challanger, I've got a little more than 6 oz dry and they are 3rd year plants, with not much left on the bine!

 

[Beerisgud]

Definitely happy with the amount I got from them. Honestly though I anticipated more weight and felt a bit dissapointed when they hit the scale. It takes quite a lot of cones to hit that 1 oz mark dry! It’s amazing how after harvesting, they showed a lot of new growth in the lower half of the plant. New shoots, side arms, and burrs everywhere I will likely have a mini second harvest with them. Also the chinooks are ripe and I will pick them today. It’s not much so I will be experimenting with them. Infusing gin or small batch Lemon/hop seltzer. Maybe make some soap. Hopped mac and cheese?
https://steemit.com/food/@haphazard...bonus-9-plant-wild-salad-too-thursday-s-greenThis woman is rad she has some cool informative vids on YouTube - Haphazardhomestead
Can’t wait for the nuggets to ripen, maybe 1-2 more weeks. These will be in my next batch for sure! I’ll post new photos of the plants later today

 

[myndflyte]

Well after having to dig up water logged and rotted rhizomes, fixing the planters and then replanting sprouted plants in June, I was able to actually get some hops from a few of the plants. Only got 0.6 oz of dried hops but it's better than having nothing and starting over again next year. I'm looking forward to them really taking off next spring.

 

[Beerisgud]

I have a theory about how I may have gotten a good harvest in the first year. The trellis design: I thought about how utilizing all that space and spreading out the plant can make the plant absorb the most sun (for my plants that’s 6/7hrs) and set the most flowers. Without having competition of lots of bines per twine these one or two bines per string were easily able to set bunches of flower sets without extra vegetation choking them out. Growing vertical during the first half and then angling the second flowering top half of growth, I think this is also similar to low stress training in cannabis where more of the plant that would otherwise be shaded in a vertical position is now exposed to more sunlight. I was amazed to see how it grew with such a small leaf to cone ratio. I did not use anything other than a couple doses of miracle gro and well amended soil. I only used beastie blooms 0-50-30 by fox farms in small doses once burrs already began forming. Additionally, I planted these rhizomes early March. That gave them time to get rooted and sprouting by springtime.

 

[LagerLover78]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Beerisgud]

@myndflyte at least you got something to throw in a small batch! What variety?

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Hops need sun. Lots of sun.

 

[Beerisgud]

@Tobor_8thMan No doubt that hops love sun. I’m honestly surprised at how well mine grew with mostly morning sun exposure. I think if you have less sunlight don’t be discouraged. They will grow fuller eventually. They are strong plants. If they get at least 4-5 hrs straight direct sun exposure and it’s not speckled thru trees I would still plant hops just for the small harvest and hop shoot harvest in spring

 

[myndflyte]

@myndflyte at least you got something to throw in a small batch! What variety?

I planted Cascade.

 

[LagerLover78]

Was just outside and saw one of these guys on the deck next to one

one of my plants