Apartment growing
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SoCal-Doug
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8 feet is a bit tight. I have seen people run a twine up, then over horizontally. He said that he had to "train" the plants almost daily to stay on the horizontal twine instead of growing up and grabbing the roof.
Maybe talk to the neighbors above you and ask if they mind if you run a twine higher?
Maybe talk to the neighbors above you and ask if they mind if you run a twine higher?
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I grow them on a 7ft obelisk with twine wrapped diagonally around it, which gives them more than 7ft to grow on. There is some amount of training involved to keep them on the twine, but not too bad. Then after awhile I just let them grow all over it.
MakeDankBeer
Well-Known Member
Yes.. depending on your set up... I ran mine at an angle to increase line length. so instead of going straight up to gutter I ran it from one side of the patio to the other. they still grew a little bit past the gutter so I wrapped them to go back down but that didn't work very well, I also trained one to grow horizontal around the railing, which ended up not working super well just because the heat between the railing and leaves would cook them. Your experience may differ based on your growing region.
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
You might want to look at dwarf hops as they are half the height of regular hops - I don't know what's available where you are (location?). Here in the UK First Gold is the only common one, also known as Primadonna in the plant trade.
Aside from trying to toy with growth to keep it reasonable, such as by making it zigzag, fold back down, and such, arrangements with neighbors is probably the simplest solution. Not sure what story you live on, but if you can get the plant to grow below you, then the harvest could be about your height. Just need to arrange proper tubing to be able to water it yourself without relying on the neighbor to do it, and without splashing all over his balcony. I almost did that myself, but then I just bought a house instead. 
It puzzles me that First Gold doesn't appear available in North America. Nor any other dwarf. You'd think someone would have figured a market for dwarf hops for amateur growers, but guess not.
It puzzles me that First Gold doesn't appear available in North America. Nor any other dwarf. You'd think someone would have figured a market for dwarf hops for amateur growers, but guess not.
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
Well it needs someone to go through the hoops for importing the raw material - surprised FG hasn't made it over there, but most of the more recent dwarf varieties on both sides of the pond are patented - for instance I think the Summit patent runs until 2025.
However, it might be worth seeing if you can get some viable seed out of commercial First Gold cones - I've managed to get a couple of seedlings out of a 100g pack of Ernest after I brewed with it, picking out the seeds before brewing with it would probably help viability!
Well it needs someone to go through the hoops for importing the raw material - surprised FG hasn't made it over there, but most of the more recent dwarf varieties on both sides of the pond are patented - for instance I think the Summit patent runs until 2025.
However, it might be worth seeing if you can get some viable seed out of commercial First Gold cones - I've managed to get a couple of seedlings out of a 100g pack of Ernest after I brewed with it, picking out the seeds before brewing with it would probably help viability!
The American Dwarf Hop Breeding Association (or whatever it was called) changed its name and largely abandoned dwarfs. The dwarfs they did make, though, are patented, and restricted. Though there was an issue with Summit being sold to the public, efforts were made to track them down and recover/destroy them. If anyone still grows Summit in their back yard, they are probably not going to talk about it. Even when the patent expires, there's not much chance to see it become available. I believe I've read that the cultivar was already pulled out of production, or in the process thereof, without any intent to make it public shown.
As for imports, sure, there are hoops, but it was released in 1996. It's been over two decades. Vendors probably figure there's no demand, though, as it's virtually unheard of in North America, both by commercial and homebrewers.
Producing dwarfs by seeds is a possibility, but that can involve a large number of seedlings and/or backcrosses. One or few genes would supposedly be involved in Dwarfism, making it possible, but not necessarily probable, to get interesting female dwarves from an open pollinated dwarf cultivar.
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
I see this has been discussed before. I suspect the lack of awareness of FG as a brewing hop is part of it, but also there's no real pressure from the US industry to move towards dwarf plants thanks to the economies of scale they enjoy, even though it would be great for home growing.
The genetics are fairly straightforward - see eg this paper "The ratio of tall to short plants indicates the action of a single dominant (for tallness) gene modified by an epistatic major gene". I wonder if Summit only has the dwarf version of the "main" gene but not the other one? But the numbers they report - segregating 117 dwarfs out of 327 suggests that it would be feasible to produce a dwarf F2 starting with just one dwarf parent (ie cones). I guess you could probably tell just by looking at internode length?
One other problem is that the dwarfing gene is pretty closely linked to the gene for selinene production, so the Wye dwarfs all tend to taste like Challenger. Boadicea was the first to break that link, and also has resistance to hop aphid, even if it's not the most exciting hop flavourwise.
Yes, I'm familiar with that publication (now, I wasn't at the time of the other thread). I do find it rather lacking in detail, though. It's a good baseline, given that the authors presumably know a thing or two about dwarf hops, and given they are the only ones that really seem interested by them. But we aren't given much info on the genotypes used. For example, they posit an expected 3:5 dwarf output. And sure, each cross yields pretty close to that, -1,41 on average. If you ran the same numbers with a 1:2 hypothesis, though, you'd also get results pretty darn close to expected, with a 2,00 difference on average. My stats classes are a bit too far behind me, but I don't think you could get statistical differences between both assumptions.
More to the point, though, is that we know nothing about the parent material used, and thus their level of homozygosity.
But yea, I'm willing to work on the presumption of "a single dominant gene modified by an epistatic major gene", but I wouldn't bet my life on it given the shaky evidence supporting it. If that presumption is true, I suppose F1 dwarves are wholly possible, if the epistatic gene's allele is dominant. Otherwise, indeed, F2s will be needed.
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
Well, given that Peter had already been working on dwarf hops for 20 years by the time of this conference, I suspect he had evidence from rather more than the four crosses published here... But if nothing else, it's a ballpark and 1:2 implies you've got a homozygous lethal in there or something.
I read the crosses being described here as being F2's, as you can't tell what's going on in a dominant/recessive situation from the F1 and the paper is trying to "prove" a single dominant gene. Regardless of the mechanism, a third of F2 plants being dwarf is a workable number, you're not dealing with a quantitative trait spread over a dozen genes or somethiing like that.
I'm almost tempted to get some Boadicea cones just to see if I can get some seedlings out of them..... Apparently Peter already has a Boadicea daughter in trials that tastes rather better than her mother.
I greatly respect Peter, but in these proceedings, he's changed his mind in one to another about the number of genes involved for aphid resistance, so it's not unreasonable to believe there's a chance this one might be slightly off as well. As you said, though, whether it's 2:1, 5:3, one gene, two genes, heck even 3 genes, it's fairly clear that regardless of the exact mechanism, there is clear segregation, and few genes involved.
I don't find Boadicea bad, myself. If the claims about it are true, agronomically, I'd say it was quite a feat of breeding. But these days, sure sounds like people think there's only 4 cultivars that still exist.
I don't find Boadicea bad, myself. If the claims about it are true, agronomically, I'd say it was quite a feat of breeding. But these days, sure sounds like people think there's only 4 cultivars that still exist.
Not a geneticist but the cross I grew out last year produced all dwarfs (maybe 100 once the smoke settled). Both Peter and a researcher at Steiner told me it was a 2 gene system. One gene is the controlling gene and the second one actually does the expression (as long as the first one is present). So apparently I have the right combo? I kept about 7 from that group so we'll have some beers to brew this fall!!
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
So what were the parents on that?
I've not brewed with Boadicea but I've had a couple of commercial beers made with her and I've been a bit underwhelmed, the last one in particular had a bit of a weird aftertaste. Not quite coconut but somewhere in that direction; not for me.
I've not brewed with Boadicea but I've had a couple of commercial beers made with her and I've been a bit underwhelmed, the last one in particular had a bit of a weird aftertaste. Not quite coconut but somewhere in that direction; not for me.
Nice. If that's true, then it suggests that homozygosity for those alleles is not lethal. Nobody had implied it was, but, you know, you never know.
It was 007 (aka Rex) x Chinook. Funny thing, I used him in a cross with Brewers Gold a few years ago and none of the seedlings showed any shortened internodes? Peter suggested that the Chinook may have had the controlling gene since she has UK Golding in her pedigree which I guess is where they obtain the dwarfism at Wye. Ultimately, I'm concerned with aroma/flavor along with a few other agronomic traits so these selections being dwarfs is more of a curiosity than anything.
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
Interesting. I believe the original source of dwarfing came from one of Salmon's original crosses made with North American hops for powdery mildew resistance; he noted it but didn't do anything with it, then Ray Neve picked it up in the late 70s. Chinook's father was 63012M, a cross between Brewer's Gold and a wild male from Utah, so again maybe there's a US connection.
I get where you're coming from, but dwarfing is a useful characteristic for home growers even if it's less relevant for commercial growers in the US.
I get where you're coming from, but dwarfing is a useful characteristic for home growers even if it's less relevant for commercial growers in the US.
Yea, breeding for dwarf hops makes little economic sense in the United States, where production is dominated by huge hopyards that are already all equipped for conventional trellis hops, especially given that low trellis grants less yield, and the economic arguments for it were irrelevant to existing operations (lower capital requirement). Seems like a rational business decision for the ADHA to turn away from that.
I'm surprised that other breeders more geared towards retail sales to backyard growers didn't pick up on it, though, like Great Leak Hops, for example, who seem to be pumping out more and more cultivars. There'd be a clear benefit for the home growers, as well as the handful of greenhouse growers. Standard trellis are impractical in those cases, and in most cases quite simply against city by-laws.
I'm surprised that other breeders more geared towards retail sales to backyard growers didn't pick up on it, though, like Great Leak Hops, for example, who seem to be pumping out more and more cultivars. There'd be a clear benefit for the home growers, as well as the handful of greenhouse growers. Standard trellis are impractical in those cases, and in most cases quite simply against city by-laws.
And then again, maybe they are. XD
https://www.canr.msu.edu/uploads/235/92786/Rohwer_Charlie_Hop_breeding_MSU45.pdf
Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
Nice presentation - particularly like the family tree on p30, which they sell as a poster but a screenshot of the presentation has sufficient resolution... I'd only seen the Wye family tree before, from a Farams calendar :
