lthendricks8
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- Feb 25, 2014
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I've searched the forums, but it seems most questions of my type have the opposite problem, so here goes ...
So, as I've mentioned round these parts before, I live in a tropical third world-ish area. The weather is lovely - the average daily low in January is 75F, and the average daily high in May is 91F. These are the temperature extremes for the year - in odd cases, the temperature is below or above the aforementioned numbers, but it's rare (and when it happens, all pandemonium breaks lose, particularly if it gets too cold, like, gasp, 75F or some such during midday - you see people riding around in triple layers with parkas on). It also rains more than enough here - between 1.5" and 7" on average, depending on the month.
So it seems like I have enough rain, enough sun, and enough heat to grow hops ... but do I have enough cold? I understand the cold winter dormancy period is very important for hops, and that's something that just quite frankly doesn't exist where I am. Even the "winter" this year (that is, December - February) had daily mean temperatures around 81F and nightly lows of only 73F.
I've read that hops grown in hotter climates (India is one I've read about some) often have substandard yields but bear cones more than once a year due to the lack of a dormancy period, so it seems it can be done. What techniques and varieties will make it more probable? Obviously, shading during the hottest parts of the day will help somewhat (perhaps a thin reflective tarp directly overhead to provide shade from 11am-1pm). But aside from putting a glycol chiller around my growing containers (now that's an idea ...), what suggestions would y'all have?
So, as I've mentioned round these parts before, I live in a tropical third world-ish area. The weather is lovely - the average daily low in January is 75F, and the average daily high in May is 91F. These are the temperature extremes for the year - in odd cases, the temperature is below or above the aforementioned numbers, but it's rare (and when it happens, all pandemonium breaks lose, particularly if it gets too cold, like, gasp, 75F or some such during midday - you see people riding around in triple layers with parkas on). It also rains more than enough here - between 1.5" and 7" on average, depending on the month.
So it seems like I have enough rain, enough sun, and enough heat to grow hops ... but do I have enough cold? I understand the cold winter dormancy period is very important for hops, and that's something that just quite frankly doesn't exist where I am. Even the "winter" this year (that is, December - February) had daily mean temperatures around 81F and nightly lows of only 73F.
I've read that hops grown in hotter climates (India is one I've read about some) often have substandard yields but bear cones more than once a year due to the lack of a dormancy period, so it seems it can be done. What techniques and varieties will make it more probable? Obviously, shading during the hottest parts of the day will help somewhat (perhaps a thin reflective tarp directly overhead to provide shade from 11am-1pm). But aside from putting a glycol chiller around my growing containers (now that's an idea ...), what suggestions would y'all have?
