Basic hops growing advice needed. NE Alabama

[Soulshine2]

Installed the cables yesterday morning. I've still got a few more feet in case I need to move the farther supports out . 25 ft of cable per plant at the top of the first one. With the coir for the first 6 ft ,minus the amount of cable wrapped around the 4x4s on each end. let's call it a net amount of 28 ft if need be. The 3 from rhizomes are the climbers so far, Crystal is the farthest along as I've shown . Hallertauer is getting some climbing shoots ready. I'm going to guess by the end of the week it will be on the coir .

 

[lump42]

Mine are starting to climb again after the initial cut back a few weeks ago. All 4 lines would hav a bines, but a rabbit's found the shoots tasty. I've got a bine on three out of four lines on both my mt hood and willamette. The raised beds are new this year and filled with compost out of the old bin. The lines go over the roof of my 15ft tall garden shed.

 

[Soulshine2]

so yesterday I got my thinker going in high gear on my water/fertilizer barrel drip system since its been hot and I cant always be home to water .
I made a crude manifold system with some 1/2 inch cpvc ,tees couplers and caps . Blue 55 gallon plastic barrel (wanted to use one of the clear white barrels I had but two out of 2 leaked ,I was pretty mad) sections of garden hose .
At first I thought it would be so simple. First trial only one side of the piping worked, turns out there was a gob of cpvc cement in the pipe . a cut and ramrod through it solved that. Then THAT side worked too well and left the other side nearly dry. It was dinner time and so I left it go for today.
BUT ,I think another cut and ramrod cleaning on that side may do the trick.
My drip system comes out of the barrel to a tee fitting going both ways 5 ft to another set of tees that have sections of garden hose shoved on ,those hose sections have a smaller piece of cpvc shoved in with caps which I drilled 1/16inch holes to drip onto the base of the plants. They dont drip , but rather a small stream,which I need to slow down and the barrel valve is only cracked open. I'm thinking of shoving a cotton ball inside the capped ends to slow the flow down to a drip. The idea is to make the 55 gallons last an entire week to 10 days between 4 plants at 1 gallon per day . wish me luck.

 

[lump42]

so yesterday I got my thinker going in high gear on my water/fertilizer barrel drip system since its been hot and I cant always be home to water .
I made a crude manifold system with some 1/2 inch cpvc ,tees couplers and caps . Blue 55 gallon plastic barrel (wanted to use one of the clear white barrels I had but two out of 2 leaked ,I was pretty mad) sections of garden hose .
At first I thought it would be so simple. First trial only one side of the piping worked, turns out there was a gob of cpvc cement in the pipe . a cut and ramrod through it solved that. Then THAT side worked too well and left the other side nearly dry. It was dinner time and so I left it go for today.
BUT ,I think another cut and ramrod cleaning on that side may do the trick.
My drip system comes out of the barrel to a tee fitting going both ways 5 ft to another set of tees that have sections of garden hose shoved on ,those hose sections have a smaller piece of cpvc shoved in with caps which I drilled 1/16inch holes to drip onto the base of the plants. They dont drip , but rather a small stream,which I need to slow down and the barrel valve is only cracked open. I'm thinking of shoving a cotton ball inside the capped ends to slow the flow down to a drip. The idea is to make the 55 gallons last an entire week to 10 days between 4 plants at 1 gallon per day . wish me luck.

Just throwing out ideas as refresher/ reference. Feel free to disregard.

I'd use a digital hose timer to control the on/off period. It will be more efficient to have it come on early morning, 5-6AM. The water will soak in with less evaporating. You probably won't need a gallon per day until they get more top growth. It's better to under water than over water. If you can soak the ground around them every 3-4 days, that will encourage more roots to grow deeper as they chase the water down. In the long run it will cause the plants to be more drought tolerant.

Be sure that the water from the tanks is entering the center of the manifold to keep pressures as consistent as possible. If the CPVC manifold is causing issues, there are four way brass manifolds that have built in shutoff valve to help with line balancing, Other option to help balance line flow rates, would be to install shutoffs at each line to manually adjust. Illustration below is similar to systems I've built recently. If this is all gravity feed, for every 2.3ft you raise the barrel, you gain 1 psi of head pressure.

If the cotton ball doesn't work, a small section of soaker hose would be a cheap alternative, 1-3 ft should be sufficient. To measure the flow rate time how long it takes to fill a bucket and set the timer for that.

 

[Soulshine2]

That is my exact ideal design . nice illustration btw. I had one of those low pressure drip systems years ago. solid tubing and porous soaker hose sections and spaghetti hose with friction fit connections and a few different sized orifices to slow the water pressure at the source, mainly meant for direct water faucet connection , not gravity. Yes a ring of soaker hose around each plant would be better for a more even watering instead of off to one side.
I went out this morning to check , its working better,sort of. I buried the emitters in the soil and it seemed to even out the pressure but I think my cotton ball idea is still going to happen. I agree the timed valve is one idea just cant get one right now. I'm still searching for the one I had . I could enter days, hours and minutes and water from 10 minute intervals up to nearly 24 hrs if I wanted. It was nice to have , never had to touch it once I had it programmed except for a rain day or constant on bypass. I just wanted to see it work first. I may have to redesign it .
Over night the 55 gallons pretty much dripped 40 gallons .
At least this doesn't wet the leaves and there's barely any evaporation and I'm not watering the weeds either.
Hallertauer is really getting vigorous. There's 6 shoots coming up from the crown almost touching the twine. Mt Hood made it to the top of the first structure and will be on the cable in a day or so. Crystal is coming in second followed by Tettnanger as far as height.
With the heat we've had I'm both very pleased and amazed at how well they're all doing.

 

[Soulshine2]

came home from work yesterday, its been in the upper 90s last couple days so I went out to fill my hop watering barrel and while it was filling did the usual bine training and looking things over when I spot this... on my Mt Hood . Theres 2 tiny hop cones like this.
THIS !!!!

 

[brewbama]

My Magnum are about 15’ tall now but the June bugs are starting to get to the leaves

 

[Soulshine2]

Im assuming you meant 15ft ...not inches. Those look nice. My Crystal plant is longer (yeah , probably 15 ft as well) but have way more of the spiky things that turn into the cones. Hard to believe that only a couple months ago they started out as barely 4 inch long rhizomes.
I've grown many things in the past , including some beautiful tobacco plants, but I dont think anything impresses me more than these hops.

 

[brewbama]

Corrected - yes 15’

 

[Soulshine2]

One of the hop cones on my Mt Hood this afternoon. Looking picture perfect.

 

[Soulshine2]

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

All 3 of my hops, Centennial, Nugget and Columbus were doing well until we had lots and lots and lots of rain. Hops were properly planted with drainage in the soil, but more rain than normal for late Spring and early Summer. All hops stopped growing. Centennial isn't looking well. Nugget and Columbus have started growing again.

 

[Soulshine2]

All 3 of my hops, Centennial, Nugget and Columbus were doing well until we had lots and lots and lots of rain. Hops were properly planted with drainage in the soil, but more rain than normal for late Spring and early Summer. All hops stopped growing. Centennial isn't looking well. Nugget and Columbus as started growing again.

where did your Nugget come from. Originally , I had Nugget in place where Hallertauer is now. I got it from tractor supply , in fact I bought twice...both rhizomes were bad. First one had a couple shoots on ,after a week it quickly died , second, same thing...Not sure why, might have sat in a hot truck or warehouse too long and just stressed out.
Thats when my wife ordered me the Hallertauer (plant) for a replacement.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

All 3 were generously given to me at a local malt pickup. They were already growing in large plant pots. I carefully planted over 2 years ago in the fall. I got about 1 oz of Nugget hops last year.

 

[Soulshine2]

In the last week we've had mass amounts of rain. Good for me since I was working long hours since a week ago Friday and hadnt had time to water anyway. My hops are doing fantastic. Three of 4 hops bines have cones that are huge and plump . Crystal is super full and heavy with them . I'm talking like a 100 or so cones, Mt Hood isnt far behind,big fat springy cones. Hallertauer is a smaller cone and has quite a few, maybe 50. Tettnanger has only like 3 or 4 that I can see, its been a bit slow but steady. They all still have a lot of burrs still coming on and I'm sure theres at least another month of growing season before I think about harvesting.
I'm pleased as can be since this is my first time growing hops and their first season so from here it should only get better.

So, what am I looking for before its time to harvest...arent the cone tips supposed to be a little papery or slightly brown? When should I start heavily inspecting ,crushing/smelling, maybe taking a cone and tearing it to see the lupulin glands to see when theyre ready?

 

[Soulshine2]

Crystal

Mt Hood

Hallertauer

Tettnanger

 

[Soulshine2]

My dad came over yesterday ,I gues he was getting bored at home and hasnt been up here in a while so...I showed him my hops . He thought that its pretty neat and asked me a few questions about it. While were out there I happened to show him the lupulin glands on the Crystal in particular. I managed to crush one and smell it...its got a light lemony ,piney aroma but still quite vegetal. Its still got a few weeks to go but its doing great. Cones are plentiful and big. I'm surprised that in its first year its grown so well and producing so much .

 

[Soulshine2]

Update. Hops are generally doing well. We had a weekend with a couple inches of rain. Most of the hops have a flush of bright green sidearms popping out from the crown. Should i prune these to keep nutrients going to the maturing cones?
Crystal has cones an inch to inch and a half long, and plump...a nice aroma when crushed, citrusy. while Mt Hood is more of an ammonia aroma , a little piney, with a tad bit of grass thats been under the mower deck a week .
Nothing yet from hallertauer (except caterpillars, see my other post)
or tettnanger .

 

[Soulshine2]

Im confused - Hallertauer has yet to have any aroma other than vegetal , basically nothing. I've picked off a couple cones that look full and matured, dried a bit , crushed and rubbed in my hand as I have the other 3 varieties and cant get anything hoppy out of it.

 

[Soulshine2]

Picked hops this morning. clockwise from top left - Crystal, Mt Hood, Tettnanger in the little box and Hallertauer . Not bad for the first year growing. Cant wait to brew with these and wait til next year for more. Im thinking of putting at least 2 more varieties in.
My fingers smell so good.

 

[Soulshine2]

After allowing them to dry overnight .I bagged and sealed this just a few minutes ago. Exactly 1 pound of hops . 0.5 oz tettnanger , 3.5 oz Hallertauer (1 bag), 4 ounces of Mt Hood (1 bag)and 8 ounces of Crystal ( 2- 4oz bags). In the freezer until I can get to the next brew.

 

[Soulshine2]

my Tettnanger is basically done for the season. No new growth, no burrs, no more cones. My Hallertauer still has virtually no aroma whatsoever and like the Mt Hood and Crystal is still producing cones which are both smelling great . How many times and how late do you guys typically harvest? This would be my second harvest off of 1st year plants. I'm just amazed how they had a comeback. Looks like I may get at least another half pound of hops .

 

[Soulshine2]

After a couple weeks of other hobbies getting in the way, I finally came home last night from work and picked the rest of my hops, second and last picking. Its been hot (upper 90s)dry (drought'ish)and the bines are shutting down . I didnt get to weigh it yet but I was surprised to get a healthy amount from both Crystal and Mt Hood. Mt Hood still had a few burrs .Not enough though to wait for. I got a handful of cones from Hallertauer, which finally has aroma to it. Maybe next year will be better for that.
In all , probably at least enough to make a batch or two when it ever cools off.

 

[Two_Hermits]

SS2, just curious how your hops plants are doing so far this year. I'm in southern middle Tennessee, right on the TN/AL line, so geographically pretty similar.
After following this thread last year I decided to try growing hops. Not expecting much, just more for the hobby, etc.