First small hop farm. Help Please. Questions

[PariahVineyard]

Yeah, get a soil test. I just sent mine in last week, only $10 dollars from Penn State.

Last year I was using a 20-20-20 in my drip line. This year, due to the excess use of chicken manure on the property, I will be hand spreading N and K but leaving the P out. This all depends on the soil test results as well.

 

[steloco]

Okay, I will take some soil samples to my local nursery tommorow or maybe for penn state for that price not bad at all. Thanks

 

[BandT]

I have not grown hops, but I believe that the soil should be the primary concern when growing any kind of plant.

I saw you ripping down the planting line, how deep does that go? It looked like the rest of the area might be pretty compacted from all the activity. Roots usually like loose airy soil in order to grow easily; you may want to think of rototilling the soil after you're done with construction. Even if you're supplying all the nutrient needs, if the roots aren't able to grow large enough due to tough soil, they won't be able to uptake all the fertilizer.

If you decide not to do the hand spreader, this is what I use for my fields:

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/fimco-15-gallon-spot-sprayer?cm_vc=-10005

It's $100, but I take off the hand sprayer and hook it up to the irrigation line.

 

[steloco]

@bandt
That is a cheap alternative also for how many gallons it holds as well. How exactly did you hook it up to your drip line?
Would you mind taking a picture?
I have a cultivator that I plan on running through the whole area before I put the plants in the ground.
I have grape vines in the same area and they have been striving they went from nothing to bushy as hell in 30 days.
Thanks for the tips!

 

[BandT]

Sorry, I have no way of taking pics and it won't be set up until we transplant in a couple weeks. I just use normal plumbing PVC fittings.

In the beginning of your irrigation line, install a T-fitting with a screw cap on the "T" part. Install a complementary fitting onto the hose of the pump/tank. Unscrew the cap of the T and hook up the pump line and you're good to go. Anybody considering farming must already have a good sense of ingenuity so I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out

 

[steloco]

@bandt
Okay, thanks yeah ill figure it out.


Hey guys question regarding soil...
So far this is what I have done with the soil for where the plants are going to be going.
We trenched a line across each row where the plants will be going and filled that trench with good rich soil.
In my eyes with all the money and time I have put into this project since then doesn't seem to be quite enough.
I want these plants to strive. When we used an auger to dig the post holes, once we got deep the soil looked really good.
I have a small cultivator, that can be used to brake up the soil.
What I was thinking of doing was buying x amount of yards of top soil and mixing it with mushroom compost and mixing that with sand and then spreading that throughout the whole area. Should I just put it on top of the dirt that is here naturally or should I dig down and then put it in. Or should I just dig a big hole for each plant and fill each hole with the soil mix?

 

[BandT]

It mostly depends on whether you meant "strive" or "thrive". If "strive" then just sit back, you're all good man.

However, if you want them to thrive.. How compacted is the soil? Was it pretty difficult to dig into? If so then you should cultivate wherever you want the roots to grow. If you plant the hops in nice loose soil and then the roots hit a bunch of hard compacted soil, it's like running into a brick wall. I think the soil amendments should be worked into the soil, sitting on top won't help the roots at all. The amount of soil amendments really depends on what the soil is like at this point and how much you want to be fertilizing in the future.

I don't know your specific situation, but I believe in most cases sand is not imported as a soil amendment. If you have clay soils, the amount of sand needed to change the soil texture into a clay-loam or something like that is often prohibitive. But like I said, I don't know your situation, maybe you have access to a ton of sand and have a way to easily incorporate it? If you do have heavy clay soils with a lot of sodium, consider adding gypsum as well.

Again, I'm not a hops farmer, but these are general agricultural practices. I'm also unclear if you are doing this just as a hobby or for actual production.

 

[derbycitybrewer]

Hell of a start from nothing. Your gonna have your hands full come harvest time lol. I started hops this year as well. But no where near the scale u have. I have only 7 plants. Look forward to the season and seeing how it goes. Cheers.

 

[steloco]

Soo its been a while, and Im sure you could guess why. We have been so busy trying to get all this stuff done so we can get these plants out of pots and into the ground that I haven't had much time to get on here to discuss it. So last time I was on here I was asking about soil etc.. I ended up getting a soil test done and it came out to be pretty good I guess so my local nursery made me 13 yards of amendment to add to my soil. As you can see from previous pictures are original plan for the plant trenches was to use a small conventional trencher which is probably only about 6 inches wide. We decided we weren't happy with that and wanted to bigger especially after putting our plants into pots, know I gotta fit that whole root ball under ground. So we rented an execavator and dug 4, 70 foot long trenches about 2 feet wide and 18 inches deep. It rained pretty good for a few days so the all the dirt got nice and soft. (this was all last weekend). Yesterday we finished up mixing our soil amendment with our current soil and filled our trenches. We had to rent a bobcat for the weekend to mix almost 30 yards of dirt which took fooooorever. We finished the job just before having to return the bobcat. We came up a little short, like I said we were able to fill the trenches but we wanted to have the rows humped for ease of trimming rhizomes in the future. So today I am bringing home 4 more yards of amendment to mix and make our humps. We also lined each trench with gopher wire before putting the soil in. It was 100 degrees yesterday so it was hard work but were getting closer and closer each weekend. This week we plan on getting all our humps done then this weekend our first goal is to get all our twine up (100 20ft lengths). And a brief update on the plants. (all cascades are up and strong, all horizon look small but very bushy and are starting to grow very fast, The centennial is starting to take off now, the shoots are pretty thick, and out of 25 zeus only 8 have came up and the rest have shown nothing. (But the ones that did come up just started to recently.

 

[BandT]

Cool man, thanks for the update! Keep uploading pictures when you have the time, I'd love to see how this turns out for you. BTW, what're you planning to do with the harvest?

 

[steloco]

In the first picture,
Towards the back are cascades. (1ft -2.5ft) They were the first out of the ground and about 10/25 got straight mowed over by rats. As you can see they are coming back strong anyways.
The ones that are considerably smaller and towards the back half of the truck are horizon. The horizon only sprouted up a few weeks ago and has recently started exploded. They are short and stalky but are shooting up bines everywhere. I have them in my truck so that I can move it to a more shaded area on a really hot day and so there mobile for when I start putting them in the ground.

In the second picture,
It is just another look at the same plants but in this pic you can see the centennial towards the very back (last two rows). These bines came out of the ground right after the cascades but then seemed to hit a wall with their growth. Actually a lot of the first shoots that came out started dieing and then new growth came up and now they are looking pretty good.

I need to get better pictures but right now its hard because of the different areas they are in currently. I have an area where I started them all that was fenced in, there is a 100 plants total with a few extras of each. All plants have started growing except for about 14 zeus. Zeus has been the hardest one to get to grow and then when it does finally come out of the ground it seems to have a little bit of a hard time before getting situated. So to say the least I am hoping to nurse the Zeus through this first year. I think it was just a plant that focused on its root system first because the bines that do come up are way thicker then any other of my variations. (Cascade(25), Centennial(25), Horizon(25), Zeus(25)).

This whole process from GLH crowns to actual plants has been a long road of getting the trellis and area ready for where these plants are going to be going and also maintaining the plants to make sure they are growing good. I just started last week giving some of the more established plants Humboldt nutrients which I have been very happy with in the past.

 

[steloco]

Here are some more pics of some of the plants. The taller one is cascade.
The rest of the pics are just to give a better idea of what the grow area looks like also our anchors.

 

[steloco]

Here are some more pictures to check out.

 

[steloco]

Just ordered some of this organic paper with some neutral fertilizer built in.
Im going to be using it to cover the mounds instead of traditional mulch.
http://www.weedguardplus.com/products.php?cat=10

 

[steloco]

Question for you guys, I started working on my irrigation last weekend and so far all I have done is ran 1/2 black drip line down each row suspended about a foot above my mounds. I already bought 4gph emitters, and have plenty of 1/4 dripline. Should I just use the 4gph emitters or go for something slower like 2gph for a better controlled soak?
I was just going to have one emmiter per plant but can do more if needed. I am on a well and have two tanks so water isn't much of an issue.

 

[BandT]

Depends on your soil texture..what mixture of clay/loam/sand. Figure that out and then I would suggest either calling the drip emitter company with that info or a UC extension office (youre in CA, right?) The UC extension offices are basically a govt-run agency to help farmers out.

 

[steloco]

I took your advice and got some info. I will just be using adjustable emitters (1-10gph).
Here is a updated picture. Everything is all done finally!!! We are planting this weekend. Our plan was to plant last weekend but I want the root balls to get a little drier first.

 

[PariahVineyard]

Looking good. What type of cover did you put over the hills?

 

[steloco]

Thanks!
We used a organic paper that is biodegradable and as it breaks down it also releases 5-5-5.
it was $150 for 500 feet. This is the link to the company who makes it, pretty cool stuff.
http://www.weedguardplus.com/products.php?cat=10

 

[steloco]

I know I have been bad about uploading pictures as this project has been in process and that's because of how busy we have been. Well we finally finished about a week and a half ago. All plants are in the ground and the trellis is all done so because I have been about uploading pictures up on here I decided to do kind of a grand finale of pictures and will continue to post pictures of the plants growing as they come along. Thanks for all the help!

 

[steloco]

Beginning!

 

[steloco]

Getting those poles up....

 

[steloco]

Trenching and mixing amendment into our dirt.

 

[steloco]

Using the boom truck to get the wire up.

 

[steloco]

Time to start hanging the coir rope.

 

[steloco]

Rope...

 

[steloco]

After doing all the rope, installing the organic paper (mulch), irrigation is ziptied to bottom wire with emitters going down to each plant, then planting.

 

[steloco]

Final product....

 

[steloco]

Update for the plants!!!

 

[steloco]

few more