Hops and extreme cold.

[MikEH86]

Good day, all i have been thinking about planting some hops in my yard. And let grow up a pergola. I was wondering if there are any kinds that dont like extreme cold -40 range (no wind chill) and or are okay with this temp?

 

[Apimyces]

Hop bines die back every winter anyways. It's the roots you need to think about, and I've not heard of people losing hops to winter's cold (though it might be possible?)

 

[BigEd]

Hops are not tropical plants. They come from latitudes well into the 40s in places where the winters can be very cold like a couple of hundred miles either side of the US/Canada border. You can always lay a nice layer of mulch over the beds but you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[MikEH86]

Awesome. Thanks all! What do you think of growing on a pergola?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Hops are not tropical plants. They come from latitudes well into the 40s in places where the winters can be very cold like a couple of hundred miles either side of the US/Canada border. You can always lay a nice layer of mulch over the beds but you shouldn't have any problems.

As someone who lives in one of those places - we're nowhere near -40°F/C! Although eg Saaz is at the same latitude as Mt Rainier and Kent is around 150 miles north of Vancouver - it doesn't mean the weather is too similar. In southern England you get frequent mild frosts in winter, but -10°C (+14°F) is a once-in-5-to-10 year event and eg London's (51.5°N) all-time record low is −16.1 °C (3.0 °F) set nearly 60 years ago. And commercial hop growing doesn't go much north of there, although you will get hobby-growing up to Glasgow or so (56°N).

Yes hops are temperate plants, they benefit from 30-60 days per winter below 4°C/40°F, but expecting them to survive -40°F seems fantasy to me. And it won't just be the cold - the kind of places that have that kind of temperature typically have strong winds (not ideal for such a tall plant that needs support) and are at high latitudes with short growing seasons.

Maybe you could get hops to exist in a polytunnel, I'm not sure what crop you would get though.

 

[Apimyces]

I'm not even sure where gets -40, but photoperiod would probably be an issue. I've never heard of people trying to grow hops in arctic regions, so I can't say if it can or can't work.

 

[MikEH86]

I live in Manitoba where the capital is nicknamed Winterpeg, the coldest i have experienced is -50c, which was only 45 mins from the USA border. That cold temp can last a month but usually only a week or two. However, we still have a solid summer its all farmland here. Its +20c today and will get into the mid to upper 30's mid-summer. it's rough on people when it can change 80 degrees year to year, And plants.

My wife was talking to her grandma she has a yard like Butchart gardens and says hops thrive here there just like weeds here too. never knew she had experience with them.

We do have high winds here as we are in the flatlands lol this is why i thought growing on a pergola would be a good idea? Thoughts?

 

[Yooper]

Hops grow in the UP of Michigan quite well. They are positively aggressive, mostly. I grow 9 varieties, but willamette will NOT grow here. I've tried several times. I'm inland, away from the Great Lakes, so we are usually one of the coldest spots in the midwest in the winter. They are popping up under my deck and all over my yard- they are not easy to get rid of, and super easy to grow.

I grow mine up trellises, and up over the green house, and up the side of the garage, and up a telephone pole, and they seem just fine.

I'm not sure what the average temperatures are here, but in January it's pretty common to have a week or two that never gets above 0, and easily hits -30 or so as a low. Those are farenheit, so that would be be under -17C for a couple of weeks as a high, and -37C at night when it's colder for a few nights.

 

[MikEH86]

Hops grow in the UP of Michigan quite well. They are positively aggressive, mostly. I grow 9 varieties, but willamette will NOT grow here. I've tried several times. I'm inland, away from the Great Lakes, so we are usually one of the coldest spots in the midwest in the winter. They are popping up under my deck and all over my yard- they are not easy to get rid of, and super easy to grow.

I grow mine up trellises, and up over the green house, and up the side of the garage, and up a telephone pole, and they seem just fine.

I'm not sure what the average temperatures are here, but in January it's pretty common to have a week or two that never gets above 0, and easily hits -30 or so as a low. Those are farenheit, so that would be be under -17C for a couple of weeks as a high, and -37C at night when it's colder for a few nights.

Awesome! Thanks! It makes me confident i can grow some here now The reason i did not specify F/C when i said -40 is because its the same either way. and they grow up pretty much anything awesome

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Well that sounds a bit more promising, not least because there should be no worries with photoperiod - Winnipeg is just south of Saaz/Žatec. And actually Manitoba unwittingly played a big part in the history of hop breeding, as WT Macoun sent a cutting of a wild hop from a stream near his lab in Morden to Wye in 1916; Ernest Salmon named it BB1 and it was the ancestor of most of the Wye hops.

However, just because some hops grow well with you, doesn't mean that good hops will grow successfully, and many plants will put out vegetative growth without conditions being suitable for productive fruiting - even if daylength is not a problem, the length of the growing season may be, I don't know. Those hops your grandma-in-law knew could have been something like Canadian Red Vine which are pretty hardy but AIUI are fairly marginal from a brewing POV.

So there's probably going to be some trial and error involved to see which varieties work in your conditions (or not as Yooper found with Willamette). I note that Great Lakes Hops say that eg Goldings don't like conditions with them, and in general I suspect it may be too cold for a lot of the European landraces, whereas hops with some BB1 in them (particularly those near the top of the Wye genealogy like Bullion and Brewer's Gold) will probably cope better.

Aside from length of growing season, another thing to worry about is the soil - AIUI prairie soil is quite thin whereas hops like deep, rich soil.

 

[Apimyces]

I live in Manitoba where the capital is nicknamed Winterpeg, the coldest i have experienced is -50c, which was only 45 mins from the USA border. That cold temp can last a month but usually only a week or two. However, we still have a solid summer its all farmland here. Its +20c today and will get into the mid to upper 30's mid-summer. it's rough on people when it can change 80 degrees year to year, And plants.

My wife was talking to her grandma she has a yard like Butchart gardens and says hops thrive here there just like weeds here too. never knew she had experience with them.

We do have high winds here as we are in the flatlands lol this is why i thought growing on a pergola would be a good idea? Thoughts?

Google says the record cold for Winnipeg is -45C. GOOD TRY.

But I'll assume you are talking with the windshield/humidex factor (if not exaggerating), which is irrelevant due to the hop rhizomes being underground. You also get a lot of snow I THINK? Snow helps insulate the ground. In any case, Manitoba is home to a lot of wild hops. I wouldn't sweat it, you don't have it all that bad.

 

[MikEH86]

Google says the record cold for Winnipeg is -45C. GOOD TRY.

But I'll assume you are talking with the windshield/humidex factor (if not exaggerating), which is irrelevant due to the hop rhizomes being underground. You also get a lot of snow I THINK? Snow helps insulate the ground. In any case, Manitoba is home to a lot of wild hops. I wouldn't sweat it, you don't have it all that bad.

Ah, you are assuming i live in or near Winnipeg though ;p i dont. Thats just our capital. I live about 2 hours out of Winnipeg a stone throws from the USA border.

When i experienced that -50 i was living in a small remote camp working for a gold exploration company cutting stright as a arrow trails through the bush for gps mapping the ground so they could track and find the gold.. That was in ontartio not even manitoba lol (about 6 hours east of here)

Any who getting off topic great to know they can and thrive up here. thanks everyone!

Edite: that -50 was a freak cold front. But heck we have been having a lot of freak storms around here. 2 feet of snow in less then 24 hours in the fall that while the trees still had leaves, Power out for 3 weeks for some. 3” hail ... I tell yeah the weather is crazy these days

 

[bonecitybrewco]

Ah, you are assuming i live in or near Winnipeg though ;p i dont. Thats just our capital. I live about 2 hours out of Winnipeg a stone throws from the USA border.

When i experienced that -50 i was living in a small remote camp working for a gold exploration company cutting stright as a arrow trails through the bush for gps mapping the ground so they could track and find the gold.. That was in ontartio not even manitoba lol (about 6 hours east of here)

Any who getting off topic great to know they can and thrive up here. thanks everyone!

Edite: that -50 was a freak cold front. But heck we have been having a lot of freak storms around here. 2 feet of snow in less then 24 hours in the fall that while the trees still had leaves, Power out for 3 weeks for some. 3” hail ... I tell yeah the weather is crazy these days

You'll be fine. I'm in Southern Saskatchewan and hops do quite well here.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Off on a tangent, but anyone what to post a fresh hop ale recipe or three?