2013 Hop garden photo thread

[jglazer]

So is it possible to harvest hops when they are wet? Here in NC we've had rain for about a month now and expected to get rain everyday for another few weeks......and some of my hops have been ready to be harvested weeks ago but they are constantly soaked...crazy weather here this year

 

[sexymanlyman]

This is what I am growing in Chattanooga, TN. First year Chinook in the first few and then Cascade, Centennial, Columbus and Magnum.

 

[SPR-GRN]

The first picture is a few weeks back, the second two a few days ago.

I've got a few questions:

Will these burrs turn into cones? Is that what happens? Second, in the later pictures, you'll notice the leaves look brown on the edges. That started happening the same time the burrs came along. Any thoughts on this? I think I am giving it adequate water.

Overall, pretty pleased with the cascade on the right. It was a better rhizome to begin with than the sterling to the left.

1.) Yes the burrs turn into cones.
2.) brown tips on leaves is typically indicative of not enough water; however are your leaves paling/turning yellow? if that's happening as well, it may be an indicator of nutrient deficiency
- the added stress of developing burrs and cones may mean you need more water or nutrients - start with some extra water, if that doesn't stop the browning, try a mild fertilizer.

Hope that helps, will send you a PM as well as this thread is mostly about photos not information exchange.

 

[SPR-GRN]

So is it possible to harvest hops when they are wet? Here in NC we've had rain for about a month now and expected to get rain everyday for another few weeks......and some of my hops have been ready to be harvested weeks ago but they are constantly soaked...crazy weather here this year

You are talking about hops that were "papery to the touch" that have just been rained on correct?

If they are ready to harvest, then harvest them - set up a drying rig with a box fan and some panel filters; it will take longer to dry than normally, but you should be good to go.

Hope that helps.

 

[gbx]

2.) brown tips on leaves is typically indicative of not enough water; however are your leaves paling/turning yellow? if that's happening as well, it may be an indicator of nutrient deficiency
- the added stress of developing burrs and cones may mean you need more water or nutrients - start with some extra water, if that doesn't stop the browning, try a mild fertilizer.

I thought it was normal for the lower leaves to start yellowing and dying when the burrs and cones are developing? This is year 3 for mine and its happened the last 2 and is starting to happen now. Have I been relaxing too much, not worrying enough and having too many homebrews? Maybe I'll mix in some miracle grow when i water this morning.

 

[whitehause]

I thought it was normal for the lower leaves to start yellowing and dying when the burrs and cones are developing? This is year 3 for mine and its happened the last 2 and is starting to happen now. Have I been relaxing too much, not worrying enough and having too many homebrews? Maybe I'll mix in some miracle grow when i water this morning.

My lower ones yellow and brown a bit too. It's just old leaves. If it were upper leaves, then I'd take some action. Once the burrs start I trim the bottom 3ft of the plant of all leaves and sidearms anyway.

 

[specialkaye]

Oh man, this sucks.
I "cleared" some previous forest land for my little hop garden and it looks like verticillium wilt was in the soil. Out of 11 vigorous plants I now have about 5 left. On a good note, I do have one plants with some side arms so it is possible I MIGHT still get a hop or two. I'm hoping anyways.

 

[jethro55]

Here are the first year burrs on Columbus.

 

[DerrangedPOJO]

First year magnum, bullion, cascade. Tettnang, saaz, williamettw, centinel. Had done frost damage but all came back. Bullion n magnum were planted later.















Few were near a black walnut tree wich I found out had a chemical that is poisonous to certain plants they did not do as well as I wanted mixed with frost damage... But I cut the dumb tree down but the roots can affect the hops for up to 3 yrs. Bullion magnum n cascade all have cones! Not a bad first year.

 

[two_hearted]

Here's my hop pergola. All first years, Back left is Centennial from a rhizome, back right is Zeus from a crown, front left is goldings from a crown, front right is chinook from a crown.

The Centennial has far more and larger flowers than the others!

Having issues with these little buggers. I assaulted them with some Dr. Bronners insecticidal soap mixture. The Centennial still had some today though.

These smell awesome!

Hopefully these auto-resize for all of you...

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Im not sure what i can do going forward to keep this cascade under control, i seem to have gotten a strong rhizome or something because its ridiculously big for a first year and has a ton of burrs that formed this weekend, more than i can count.

Im worried that when my Columbus on the left reaches the top its going to start tangling, i guess ill just have to be super vigilant in opening that window and keeping the Columbus away. I already have rerouted the cascade, they were reached all the way onto the Columbus line, so i looped them over and sent them back to the right on the main white line.

But going forward to next year, any idea what i can do to improve my trellis design to prevent this? The eye bolts you see under my eaves are about 18' high. The plants are almost exactly 6' apart. I had 14' of space, Newport and Columbus on the ends are 1 foot in from the edges, and the cascade is in between those.

 

[Carlscan26]

Im not sure what i can do going forward to keep this cascade under control, i seem to have gotten a strong rhizome or something because its ridiculously big for a first year and has a ton of burrs that formed this weekend, more than i can count.

Im worried that when my Columbus on the left reaches the top its going to start tangling, i guess ill just have to be super vigilant in opening that window and keeping the Columbus away. I already have rerouted the cascade, they were reached all the way onto the Columbus line, so i looped them over and sent them back to the right on the main white line.

But going forward to next year, any idea what i can do to improve my trellis design to prevent this? The eye bolts you see under my eaves are about 18' high. The plants are almost exactly 6' apart. I had 14' of space, Newport and Columbus on the ends are 1 foot in from the edges, and the cascade is in between those.

It looks like you're sharing an eye bolt for the Cascade with the other two plants - I'd put it on it's own eyebolt so it can only grow up the one rope and then drop down from there. Though you'd still have to be careful about side arms from both plants meeting in the airspace between them, you'd at least not have a direct growth path that crosses the plants like you do now.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

It looks like you're sharing an eye bolt for the Cascade with the other two plants - I'd put it on it's own eyebolt so it can only grow up the one rope and then drop down from there. Though you'd still have to be careful about side arms from both plants meeting in the airspace between them, you'd at least not have a direct growth path that crosses the plants like you do now.

Only problem is i did that on purpose because if there's a middle eyebolt the cascade will grow through it. Defeating the entire purpose of the setup which was at the end of the season to let out the slack line for the main rope thats on the right side, thus lowering all the plants to the ground for harvest, then next season i attach a few more twine and pull it back up.

Trying to prevent having to climb up 15 feet on a ladder constantly, as neither of us is a fan of heights to begin with lol, so putting in those eye bolts was quite the endeavor.

 

[JohnnyO]

Here's my hop pergola. All first years, Back left is Centennial from a rhizome, back right is Zeus from a crown, front left is goldings from a crown, front right is chinook from a crown.

The Centennial has far more and larger flowers than the others!

That is a sweet trellis/pergola setup. Please tell me you have plans to turn that into a mini hop AT-AT.

 

[Carlscan26]

Only problem is i did that on purpose because if there's a middle eyebolt the cascade will grow through it. Defeating the entire purpose of the setup which was at the end of the season to let out the slack line for the main rope thats on the right side, thus lowering all the plants to the ground for harvest, then next season i attach a few more twine and pull it back up.

Trying to prevent having to climb up 15 feet on a ladder constantly, as neither of us is a fan of heights to begin with lol, so putting in those eye bolts was quite the endeavor.

Ahh Gotcha. Didn't realize that was your setup.

You only need to climb up there once to install a pulley. I'm doing one per pot next year. This will also allow you to harvest each variety as it becomes ready vs all at the same time.

 

[day_trippr]

Right to left are Centennial, Chinook, a lilac tree, and Cascade (four 3rd year plants each). They made it 20+ feet up to the suspension line a few weeks ago, crawled along it for awhile and then exploded in side-arms. The Centennials are all coned up already while the Chinook and Cascade are covered with burrs.

Aside from incidental munching from a sparse but wide variety of critters, and one Cascade (the wimpy one just to the left of the steps) that's never done well and is going to be replaced next spring with a clone of a sibling, so far so good. Haven't had to spray anything yet. If this latest (and epic) heat wave doesn't bring on the spider mites this could be an easy year...

Cheers!

 

[tripplehazzard]

So many burrs in my first year plants! Should I clip the bottom leaves where no burrs are producing? Or should I leave it on my first years? Impatient! !! Can't wait for them to start turning. I have had burrs for weeks now.. it seems.

 

[TangoHotel]

So many burrs in my first year plants! Should I clip the bottom leaves where no burrs are producing? Or should I leave it on my first years? Impatient! !! Can't wait for them to start turning. I have had burrs for weeks now.. it seems.

I've trimmed off the bottom foot by the base just to try and prevent any disease and any other leaf that has turned crispy. I also am watering the hell out of them in this heat. They're eating up about 2 gallons of water a day each. I get home from work and the soil is completely dry. I have a sunbeam that has half a crop already with a ton of burrs left to mature and my nugget and Willamette are teeming with spurs. Keep em healthy and you should get some yield!

 

[MadCnty]

Ok maybe a noob question here but how do you folks who grow your own hops figure out the aa% on them???

 

[TangoHotel]

I just assume the low range of the hops AA. If the style is 4% to 7% I'll assume it's about 4%. Chances are it's probably less.

There was a hop tea suggestion that I saw somewhere where it gets diluted with water and when there is finally no detectable taste that is roughly the percentage. So if you dilute the tea 6 times with a certain amount ad you finally get no flavor, you can guess it's 6%. I'll have to find that and try that this year.

 

[Wingnutt73]

First year Zeus Hops have Cones!!! I'm so Excited.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Ok maybe a noob question here but how do you folks who grow your own hops figure out the aa% on them???

These guys posted in the Vendor area a while back.
http://coastalsciencelabs.com/pricingsample-sizesordering.html

They do IBU testing for $5 per sample.

So i envision the process goes something like this

1) Create cheap 1 gallon SMASH.
2) Use BeerSmith, use say 1oz of the Hops @ 60 mins and keep track of the beers final IBU based on the default AA% for that hop that Beersmith gives you.
3) Get them to test it and get the IBU.
4) Go back to your Beersmith recipe and tweak the AA% for your hops until your final recipe IBU = what they said it was.

You now know approximately your AA%. Its not like you'll know the difference if its 10.2% or 10.4% AA as i dont know their labs accuracy, but you can probably get a pretty reasonable .5-1% or so AA accuracy? Better than nothing and only $5 and lets you use home grown bittering hops more effectively.

 

[mhurst111]

I have a cone!




Well, it's almost a cone

First year centennial, growing in a pot, so I will be happy with any production.

There are actually about 2 dozen burr/cones on it that all look like they are trying to become cones.

 

[mthompson]

These pictures are a week old, so you'll just have to imagine everything about 10% larger and 50% more cones/burrs.

pairs left to right: wild, wild, cascade, centennial

Cascades both have many more burrs, this is just the tip. It's hard to take pics of them because they are way up there. (top of the irrigation barrel on the left is about 8.5 ft. high; I have to extend my arm all the way up to unscrew the upper bung to fill it.)

Centennials have large cones (no pics, sorry - I'll get some tonight), just not as many as the Cascade will have. Wild ones are just starting to look like they are going to burr out.

 

[whitehause]

wow that's a lot of burrs:rockin:

 

[mthompson]

wow that's a lot of burrs:rockin:

I'll try to get a better picture....but both Cascades, from a frontal view, are more pale green/yellow than they are dark green right now. Second year plants with a great growing season weather-wise, well composted, mulched, and little to no insect pests yet.

 

[Rys06Tbss]

That's exactly how my 1st year cascade looks.

 

[RUNningonbrew]

So some of my cascade are ready to be harvested and dried. The tips started to brown, then felt papery. I dried them using a dehydrator but they still have more of a "flowery" smell than a hop smell any thoughts? Here is a picture after drying

 

[mthompson]

Centennials:

Exploding Cascades:

 

[mthompson]

So some of my cascade are ready to be harvested and dried. The tips started to brown, then felt papery. I dried them using a dehydrator but they still have more of a "flowery" smell than a hop smell any thoughts? Here is a picture after drying

What year are the plants? First and second year are not as good a quality as the third and beyond.

 

[Mcbobs]

Here's my centennial bine alongside a cold glass of Tallgrass' new Wild Plum. Really an awesome beer!

 

[Stevo2569]

So some of my cascade are ready to be harvested and dried. The tips started to brown, then felt papery. I dried them using a dehydrator but they still have more of a "flowery" smell than a hop smell any thoughts? Here is a picture after drying

I never heard about the third year and up thing. But my first year cascades were flowery as well. Aside that my first year centennial was super dank. I too harvested today. All second yr plants. About three lbs wet of cascade. 1.5 lbs each of nugget and centennial. Dehydrator is workin over time for the next few days. 😀Next harvest won't be as much nugget or cent but cascade will be close. Still tons of burs growing.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

I think one of my Cascade is a herm?

 

[roguemc]

1st year cascade coming up nicely, really started to grow quickly in the last week

 

[basementbrewbrad]

I think one of my Cascade is a herm?

Looks like it... Seems like a lot of people are getting hermaphrodite plants this year. I'm sure all the excessive rain and heat are a major contributing factor. I have three Columbus that are "Pat" plants if you will and one cascade that may be a male. I guess when you buy a hundred rhizomes wholesale there is bound to be a few mistakes. Here are the herm Columbus twins

 

[Carlscan26]

So are the "pat" plants not viable or do they just have lower yields?

 

[basementbrewbrad]

So are the "pat" plants not viable or do they just have lower yields?

They are still viable the yield is supposed to be lower but in those two first year plants pictured you can tell they are producing quite a bit

 

[Billy-Klubb]

mine are all 2nd year plants. Fuggle, Cascade, Willamette, and Nugget. if they're "Pat's" or not, I'm just happy they came back this year! hahahaa!!

 

[DerrangedPOJO]

Can we see an up close shot of the herms?

 

[whitehause]

Can we see an up close shot of the herms?

ummm....errrr....yea, that sounds odd.