Has anyone grown Neomexicana hops?

[PapaBearJay]

Hello Nagmay, I've asked the USDA on numerous occasions for both seed and rhizomes of native North American hops, but they have never sent me anything.

I am trying to collect male plants for breeding purposes. If you could send me some seeds or rhizomes I would greatly appreciate it.

If anybody could send me some male hop rhizomes I would be more then willing send back my hybrid rhizomes in the case that I am successful in crossbreeding the hops.

The USDA restricts use of the GRIN to educators, researchers, breeders(public and private) and commercial uses. This excludes hobbyists in most cases, though it seems Nagmay may have received some one way or another.

 

[Crito]

We are currently growing Neo1 and Amallia.

We trialed the plants last season in Michigan, and they yielded fantastically. We're still waiting for second year trials this year. Brewers in Michigan were interested in the cones, including Shorts and New Holland Brewing Company. They will likely be given enough cones this fall as part of our Brewer Trial Program in order to brew some test batches. This will determine if we want to try to establish hopyards of these varieties in Michigan.

They seem to prefer to grow in more dry conditions than wet, which seems obvious when you take the region the developed in. We don't have any details about how the hop stores at the moment.

We have spoken with the original breeder, and while he didn't give specifics of where he found his plants. The varieties that he created Amallia, Neo1, and Multihead, can be found from a few different sources online. He sold the entire breeding line to a hop producer in Washington I believe. New varieties are being bred using the Neomexicana genetics as we speak. I'm not sure what the labs out west are doing but both Neo1 and Amallia are in our breeding program and have produced viable crosses.

We will also have both varieties for sale this year. At the moment Spring sales are limited to commercial sized orders only. If we are able to build up a big enough inventory, we hope to have them available for smaller retail orders later in the season.

We also have Willow Creek growing in house too, but have yet to run that one through our trials.

What type of hop flavor / profile is Willow Creek?

 

[nagmay]

I did receive a small amount of seed from the GRIN repository. I was honest when I sent in my request - stating that it was to be used for private breeding purposes.

That said, the seeds took over 8mo to arrive. Additionally, the report shows that the seeds were collected in 2002, and the propagation was abysmal. I only have single plant remaining - a female.

I had much better luck obtaining neomexicana seeds from friends and online acquaintances who live in the areas where these grow naturally. I encourage others to do he same and share what you find.

At this point, the young plants are probably too small to collect rhizome this year. However, I am planning the collect pollen in that the spring, and - if enough is available - may be willing to share. This would actually put anyone interested in breeding one step (or more) ahead.

Anyone interested should email me and I will start a list. Also contact me if you have any wild samples or breeding materials to share. I would love to hear from you.

 

[brewerelated]

I have requested a lot of other seeds from the USDA and they tend to not give any seeds or plants for anything that is commercially available. If you asked for a cascade rhizome there is a good chance that they won't give you one.

I asked them for Neomexicana varieties as those are very hard to find commercially. I also specifically asked for male plants or seeds. I was honest with them that I did intent to breed the plants with Centennial hops.

My overall goal is to breed hops with a very diverse lineage like Centennial hops with something from the south west. I want to create something that would do well south of the hop belt. Most of the USDA breeding programs are concentrated on breeding hops that do well in the pacific northwest.

If anybody has any pictures of Neomexicana hop plants please post them and if anybody is growing them this season please keep us updated.

 

[nagmay]

"Most of the USDA breeding programs are concentrated on breeding hops that do well in the pacific northwest."

Historically that may have bee true. However, over the past few years with the explosion of microbrewing around the country (and world), people are starting to understand the benefits of growing hops locally. In my opinion this is a good thing.

In the past year, I have been contacted by many individuals looking to start their own breeding programs. Hopefully, we can all work together to make the next generation of hops a little more genetically diverse.

 

[PapaBearJay]

I did receive a small amount of seed from the GRIN repository. I was honest when I sent in my request - stating that it was to be used for private breeding purposes.

That said, the seeds took over 8mo to arrive. Additionally, the report shows that the seeds were collected in 2002, and the propagation was abysmal. I only have single plant remaining - a female.

I had much better luck obtaining neomexicana seeds from friends and online acquaintances who live in the areas where these grow naturally. I encourage others to do he same and share what you find.

At this point, the young plants are probably too small to collect rhizome this year. However, I am planning the collect pollen in that the spring, and - if enough is available - may be willing to share. This would actually put anyone interested in breeding one step (or more) ahead.

Anyone interested should email me and I will start a list. Also contact me if you have any wild samples or breeding materials to share. I would love to hear from you.

I didn't mean for that to come out the wrong way, it's just that generally GRIN does not release to hobbyists. I won't say it never happens, but it doesn't happen often.

 

[CA_Mouse]

Mexico is that space south of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

You forgot California as being among the states that border Mexico!

 

[CA_Mouse]

I'd be willing to pay you for some big chunks of rhyzomes when they start sprouting. The guys who found these in NM have been very secretive about where they can be found in the wild.

Same here! I would love to give these a go here in So CA! I'd even pay for you to ship me some fresh hops.

 

[CA_Mouse]

Thanks a ton for that link. One of these sites is only a couple of hours from my house. I may talk the wife into a hop and rock collecting road trip this weekend.

Same goes for you... If you can get a few nice sized rhizomes, I will gladly pay to have them shipped to So CA!

 

[brewerelated]

It is true that the public is looking to grow stuff locally. I also agree that this is a good thing. I have no doubts that there are many individuals out there that are looking to grow locally and create varieties locally. I too am looking to grow stuff locally and start a small scale independent breeding project.

I am just not sure if the USDA is interested in giving the public access to the genetic material that could help us start local small scale independent breeding projects.

They seem more interested in helping established institutions such as the universities and established commercial breeding programs. Even when they do release a new variety that is open to the pubic most of their test rhizomes are sent to places in the northwest for testing. The USDA focuses on breeding varieties that will have resistance to diseases and that will yield well in Oregon or Washington. Even the names of many their varieties are named after places or landmarks in the pacific northwest.

We might have to start are own official decentralized breeding program in order for them to take us seriously and actually give us access to genetic material otherwise we are dependent on one another to go out into the wild and collect materials and send them to each other. There is nothing wrong with relying on the community here at HBT, I just wish we had access to the USDA catalog especially considering that the USDA is funded with public money.

If anybody can dig up some rhizomes from out in the wild I will gladly pay to have some sent to me.

"Most of the USDA breeding programs are concentrated on breeding hops that do well in the pacific northwest."

Historically that may have bee true. However, over the past few years with the explosion of microbrewing around the country (and world), people are starting to understand the benefits of growing hops locally. In my opinion this is a good thing.

In the past year, I have been contacted by many individuals looking to start their own breeding programs. Hopefully, we can all work together to make the next generation of hops a little more genetically diverse.

 

[corkybstewart]

We made the first attempt to find them today, unfortunately this weekend's snow storm pretty much made that impossible. But these are at a much higher elevation than I expected, I thought they would be more in the valley bottom near the stream. Also that whole area has been burned at least a couple of times since those plants were collected, it's possible they are no longer alive. We'll go back in the summer with a GPS and hopefully can pinpoint the area closer.

 

[el_Palido]

This thread gives me hope for humanity....and hops.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

I'm glad I stumbled across this thread. Being a neomexican myself , I'm very interested in these new varieties. I'm going to plan a trip to the area by Placitas, PI 635477, to see if I can find some of those growing in the wild. If I find them, I'll grab some rhizomes and post an update. My Cascade, Centennial, Columbus and Mt. Hood plants are poking up shoots. Hopefully the wild ones are doing the same so that I can locate them.

 

[brewerelated]

I'm glad I stumbled across this thread. Being a neomexican myself , I'm very interested in these new varieties. I'm going to plan a trip to the area by Placitas, PI 635477, to see if I can find some of those growing in the wild. If I find them, I'll grab some rhizomes and post an update. My Cascade, Centennial, Columbus and Mt. Hood plants are poking up shoots. Hopefully the wild ones are doing the same so that I can locate them.

Hey grab some extra rhizomes if you can. I would be willing to pay you to ship them or possibly trade if I have something that you might want.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

Hey grab some extra rhizomes if you can. I would be willing to pay you to ship them or possibly trade if I have something that you might want.

If I can find the plants, I'll grab some extra rhizomes. Ideally, I'd like to find multiple plants to see if I can get male and female varieties. It would be fun to do backyard breeding of hop plants.

 

[brewerelated]

If I can find the plants, I'll grab some extra rhizomes. Ideally, I'd like to find multiple plants to see if I can get male and female varieties. It would be fun to do backyard breeding of hop plants.

That's what I am trying to do as well. I am trying to grow a male from seeds that were harvested from Cascades.

Many of us are working on breeding hops. Check out this thread over here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/so-you-want-breed-your-own-hops-464503/

 

[PapaBearJay]

If I can find the plants, I'll grab some extra rhizomes. Ideally, I'd like to find multiple plants to see if I can get male and female varieties. It would be fun to do backyard breeding of hop plants.

Seconded! Rhizomes for all! I'd be happy to trade for rhizomes with a named variety if you're interested.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

I made a trip up to Placitas yesterday afternoon. I wasn't expecting to find much but was pleasantly surprised. I didn't walk more than 50 yards from where I parked before I saw old dried vines twisting around bushes and trees. I looked up in one of the bushes and saw some old golden cones. I crushed a couple of the dried cones and they smelled surprisingly good! They actually reminded me a lot of Cascade hops.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

The bad news... I was limited on time so I only grabbed a few rhizomes to plant here. For any locals looking to grab some rhizomes, I found these growing right next to the Las Huertas creek just upstream from the turnoff for the Sandia Cave. If I get a chance to go back up in the next couple weeks I'll grab some more rhizomes for HBT folks. If not, I may have some from my yard after this year's growing season.

At the very least, I'm planning to go back up there in the fall to do some wild hop harvesting.

 

[B-Hoppy]

Jackpot! Based on the amount of lupulin left in those cones it doesn't look like the alpha on that particular plant is very high. Good luck!

 

[PapaBearJay]

The bad news... I was limited on time so I only grabbed a few rhizomes to plant here. For any locals looking to grab some rhizomes, I found these growing right next to the Las Huertas creek just upstream from the turnoff for the Sandia Cave. If I get a chance to go back up in the next couple weeks I'll grab some more rhizomes for HBT folks. If not, I may have some from my yard after this year's growing season.

At the very least, I'm planning to go back up there in the fall to do some wild hop harvesting.

Find any seeds in any of the cones during your expedition?


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[Doog_Si_Reeb]

I grabbed a couple cones to look at closer to see if there are seeds. Are hop seeds easily visible in a cone? I don't think I've ever seen hop seeds before.

 

[PapaBearJay]

If you macerate the flowers the seeds will be round, dark tan to dark brown in color, and about 0.5-1 mm in size.

Otherwise just remove the bracts from the strig, if there are any seeds present they will be positioned near where the bracts (leaf-like features of the flower) attach to the strig and that area should be swollen or inflated.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[corkybstewart]

The bad news... I was limited on time so I only grabbed a few rhizomes to plant here. For any locals looking to grab some rhizomes, I found these growing right next to the Las Huertas creek just upstream from the turnoff for the Sandia Cave. If I get a chance to go back up in the next couple weeks I'll grab some more rhizomes for HBT folks. If not, I may have some from my yard after this year's growing season.

At the very least, I'm planning to go back up there in the fall to do some wild hop harvesting.

What do you think the elevation is at that spot? Are there lots of plants or just a few. I will probably have to be in Santa Fe sometime in the next month or 2, that would be a great side trip.

 

[brewerelated]

The bad news... I was limited on time so I only grabbed a few rhizomes to plant here. For any locals looking to grab some rhizomes, I found these growing right next to the Las Huertas creek just upstream from the turnoff for the Sandia Cave. If I get a chance to go back up in the next couple weeks I'll grab some more rhizomes for HBT folks. If not, I may have some from my yard after this year's growing season.

At the very least, I'm planning to go back up there in the fall to do some wild hop harvesting.

Excellent. I am wishing you luck in growing the rhizomes so that you will have more to share with the community in the future. I'd be happy to buy some rhizomes from you in the future. If you run into any male plants in the wild please grab me a rhizome. I would gladly pay for that as well.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

What do you think the elevation is at that spot? Are there lots of plants or just a few. I will probably have to be in Santa Fe sometime in the next month or 2, that would be a great side trip.

The spot I marked on my GPS is 7234 ft. If you drive through the town of Placitas and just continue on that highway, it will turn into a dirt road. I think I drove 3 or 4 miles on the dirt section before stopping. The Las Huertas creek runs right along side the road. I found two of the plants growing about 10 feet away from the creek. The third plant I found was up the hill a bit, probably about 75 feet from the creek.

Considering how quickly I found last year's bines still coming up from the ground, I would guess that there are a lot of plants in that area.

To give away all secrets, here are the coordinates I marked on my GPS for the plants I found:

N 35 14.852'
W 106 24.857'

 

[B-Hoppy]

I grabbed a couple cones to look at closer to see if there are seeds. Are hop seeds easily visible in a cone? I don't think I've ever seen hop seeds before.

Here's a pretty good page that goes into the morphology of the hop cone http://community.mrbeer.com/communi.../07/30/flower-power-part-ii-(anatomy-of-a-hop) and a few pictures from last week's brewing. They're a lot easier to find once the hops get to the stage that you found them in as opposed to looking for them them in a sticky gooey fresh cone.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

Excellent. I am wishing you luck in growing the rhizomes so that you will have more to share with the community in the future. I'd be happy to buy some rhizomes from you in the future. If you run into any male plants in the wild please grab me a rhizome. I would gladly pay for that as well.

I was hoping to identify some male plants based on the dried bines, but I don't know if they are easy to identify based on the bines alone. The cones I saw were clearly female so I went after those rhizomes. Are male bines distinctively different?

 

[brewerelated]

I've only seen male plants in pictures. Here is a picture that I found on the internet. I have not seen one in person.

 

[PapaBearJay]

I've only seen male plants in pictures. Here is a picture that I found on the internet. I have not seen one in person.

It's actually quite amazing to see the males in flower, some can quite literally be encased in a shell of flowers.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

No luck with seeds in the few cones I had grabbed. Being that the cones are incredibly dry, I wonder if there may have been seeds, but they fell out over the winter.

I saw some vines that had small branches, ~4", coming off of either side periodically. I wonder if those could be male hop plants. I'm going to make a couple more trips up to that area throughout the summer and fall to see if I can identify some males.

 

[shtoive87]

The spot I marked on my GPS is 7234 ft. If you drive through the town of Placitas and just continue on that highway, it will turn into a dirt road. I think I drove 3 or 4 miles on the dirt section before stopping. The Las Huertas creek runs right along side the road. I found two of the plants growing about 10 feet away from the creek. The third plant I found was up the hill a bit, probably about 75 feet from the creek.

Considering how quickly I found last year's bines still coming up from the ground, I would guess that there are a lot of plants in that area.

To give away all secrets, here are the coordinates I marked on my GPS for the plants I found:

N 35 14.852'
W 106 24.857'

I just went up today trying to find some at the location you mentioned. My wife and I looked for 2 hours and couldn't find anything... Maybe all the cones have blown away by now? We'll have to go back near the end of the summer.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

I wouldn't be surprised if the cones had all blown away. We've had some pretty wicked winds this spring.

Before I saw the cones, I first noticed the tangle of dried vines in the bushes next to Las Huertas creek. The spot where I found them was directly across the creek, where several logs make it easier to cross. As I walked up from the creek, maybe ten feet from the water, I noticed the vines in a bush to the left.

There might even be some visible shoots coming up from the roots at this point. When I grabbed a couple rhizomes a few weeks ago, there were small purple/white shoots coming up about 1/2" from the root. The one that I have in a pot in my yard is starting to show some small leaves.

 

[Crito]

So far amillia was good quality rhizome. Neo1 were all junk. I will be surprised if 50 % will grow.

The review of neo1 wasn't from a forum sponsor. Apparently a lot of retailers got the short end of the stick on neo1 rhizomes. There's only one source for them.

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

Sorry to hear about the Neo-1. I was hoping to get one of those rhizomes, but everyone was sold out of them.

Here's how one of the plucked-from-the-wild neomexicanus hop rhizomes is doing.

 

[Crito]

If anyone finds a strawberry or peachy flavor. You have hit gold.

 

[blizzard]

Sorry to hear about the Neo-1. I was hoping to get one of those rhizomes, but everyone was sold out of them.

Here's how one of the plucked-from-the-wild neomexicanus hop rhizomes is doing.

You're definitely off to a good start.

 

[brewerelated]

Here's how one of the plucked-from-the-wild neomexicanus hop rhizomes is doing.

Awesome, hopefully you'll get some cones.

 

[PapaBearJay]

Well done!

 

[Crosshatch]

I have 2 Neo rhizomes and 2 Cascade rhizomes that I am going to be planting this weekend, (in western Maryland). I'll let you know how they do. This is my first time planting hops so hopefully all goes well.