Our hop farm

[HALIFAXHOPS]

That looks great, but I don't know how I would prime it. Any ideas?

It is self priming up to around 10'

 

[Mojzis]

Put in an order for more rhizomes. Looks like we'll have centennial, cascade, chinook, tettnang, columbus, sorachi ace, sterling, yakima gold and tahoma. We'll see what does well in the area and go from there.

The majority of the plants will be cascade, centennial and chinook.

 

[Mojzis]

I went to Harbor Freight and picked up that pump. They had an upgraded version for an extra 5$. It claims 300gph and 35' lift.

Also ordered a drip setup once I finally figured out what I wanted. I went with a gravity style dirty water setup, which will use 1/4" poly tubing instead of drip tape. I shouldn't need to worry about pressure and just leave the barrel on a wagon next to the yard.

The only thing left is getting the twine from tractor supply.

Snow is finally melting!

 

[HALIFAXHOPS]

I tried the 1/4" tubing and it was more work than you would think. I had emitters clogging and coming off the hose and seemed like I was fixing it every day. Do the tape you will not regret it. To clear it if it gets clogged just undo the end and flush it right out.

 

[Mojzis]

We spent the weekend stringing up the yard and building the beds. We are going to give the beds a try and see if they are beneficial or not. We're hoping to makes it easier to mulch and keep the plants contained. Each plant gets a 4x4 box. We made tent stakes out of hornbeam to keep the strings to the ground.

We got the drip line set up, but still haven't put anything together to connect garden hose fittings to the 300g tote. Any chance you have a parts list @Halifax?

Also, my father believes we should be running 3 drip lines down each row, 3 emitting holes per line per box. That would give us 9 drips per box. From what I have read, they recommend one line per row with emitters every 2'.

8 plants survived the winter and have been transplanted. Now we're waiting on 16 rhizomes to show up to complete the yard.

 

[Mojzis]

All the new rhizomes have sprouted and all the second years are growing strong despite a little frost.

Planted some clover between the rows and mulched some on memorial weekend. So far so good.

 

[Mojzis]

Clover is starting to come in. Drip tubing isn't working very well. Might look into doing something else. Only 2/3 of the holes actually drip.. Maybe we'll switch to drip tape after all.

And because pictures are fun....

 

[Mojzis]

We switched the drip tubing to new stuff and its working very well. Picked up a digital timer too, just have to program it.

As far as new varieties go, we're seeing very poor growth from sterling and sorachi ace. Also cascade continues to struggle. The best growers by far have been centennial, columbus, chinook and yakima gold.

It appears the cold and wet weather isn't doing us any favors. The second year plants seem to now be getting hit hard with signs of a virus. I'm no expert but it appears to be mosaic virus. One tettnanger plant is overcome with spotty chlorotic/yellowing leaves. Starting to worry that it will spread. I'm not sure if we should cut it early and either leave the infected boxes go for a year and burn the ground. Any advice here is more than welcome.

No signs of aphid damage, just slugs eating the bottom foot of foliage. To be sure its not a nutrient deficiency i'm bringing in a soil sample to my lab and will hopefully get an idea if we're lacking anything.

 

[DarkCoder]

It appears the cold and wet weather isn't doing us any favors. The second year plants seem to now be getting hit hard with signs of a virus. I'm no expert but it appears to be mosaic virus. One tettnanger plant is overcome with spotty chlorotic/yellowing leaves. Starting to worry that it will spread. I'm not sure if we should cut it early and either leave the infected boxes go for a year and burn the ground. Any advice here is more than welcome.

Can you post pictures of the affected leaves ? It can be Downy Mildew, with all the rain that we got so far.

 

[Mojzis]

Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture of the worst one before I stripped all of the infected leaves. Attached is a centennial beginning to show the same mottling, but to a much lesser extent. I'm not even sure that its the same issue.

The tettnanger had the mottling on only mature leaves reaching as high as 10'.

 

[Mojzis]

I finally made it back to the hop yard. Luckily my father has been doing a good job of keeping the grass cut and the plants watered. The clover is really coming in between the rows.

I took some soil in to work and got an idea of what we're working with. N is good, P & K are both very excessive. I also checked for boron which was good. What I don't know is if I should be concerned with the excessive P&K. I've got some research to do.

I got a picture of the mottled leaves this time. The 2nd tettnanger appears stunted and the mottling has shown up on all the 2nd year plants except the chinook. On both new and old growth.

 

[day_trippr]

I've never seen a pattern like this before

It's interesting because the markings are so distinct - almost like variegation - while the "background" leaf character actually looks quite healthy - as do the adjacent leaves (which look great, actually).

I can't imagine a nutrient issue could cause that kind of pattern in a random leaf without the rest of the plant showing similar issues (but I'm an engineer - what do I know? )
I'd be looking under that leaf for critters - but even that seems like a stretch

Cheers!

 

[Mojzis]

Oddly enough we are pretty much pest free this year. A few aphids and beetles here and there but never very many. The most abundant creature we have found appears to be some species of blue leafhopper.

 

[PapaBearJay]

That my friend, is virus. Hop mosaic virus. It is transmitted mechanically (cultivation, pruning, etc.) and by some aphid species. I wouldn't doubt the potential of leafhoppers to transmit it either.

 

[Mojzis]

I was worried that's what it was. Now from here i'm not sure how to proceed. After the harvest pull all infected plants? Should I quarantine the beds or not worry about that?

 

[Mojzis]

Did some harvesting this weekend. We picked Yakima Gold, Chinook, Centennial and Tettnanger. We waited a bit too long for the Centennial. Cascade and Columbus have a little while to go. I'm thinking the first year Columbus has over a pound of cones. In fact it's so weighted down by cones, side arms are breaking off. I had to collect a bucket of these cones early. My favorite to pick from was the Yakima. The side arms are ~4" long and have lots of cones and very little leaves. Helpful.

The drying bins were made from dresser drawers. The bottoms were cut and fit with screen. We ran out of drawers after 14. Next year we will need to double these I guess. A large attic fan sits on top and pushes air down. I tried to follow Dan's drying techniques. The porch is dry, get good air flow and ranges from 60-80. We should have two fans, but we'll see how it goes.

We're pretty happy with what we got. A lot of hops from first years!

View attachment 1440384509702.jpg

View attachment 1440384528277.jpg

 

[lump42]

That my friend, is virus. Hop mosaic virus. It is transmitted mechanically (cultivation, pruning, etc.) and by some aphid species. I wouldn't doubt the potential of leafhoppers to transmit it either.

It definitely looks likes virus or viroid. It could be hop stunt viroid or Apple mosaic virus as well. No way to no for certain without lab testing. Cornell has a great plant diagnostic lab and give control options. Mechanical, aphid, and thrips are all common virus vectors. Leafhoppers don't usually transfer viruses. Unfortunately, there is no cure for virus infected plants.

 

[Mojzis]

Lump, thanks for the info!

We ended up with ten pounds dried. Nothing from sorachi ace or sterling. Barely any from cascade. The first year Columbus produced 1 1/2 lb each which was nice to see.

By far the best cones came from the chinook. When I rubbed a cone you could smell it at the other end of the yard. Just touching a cone left your hand sticky from oils. I used a couple ounces to dry hop an IPA and got great citrus/tropical fruit notes I didn't know chinook was capable of.

Anyway we're already looking forward to next year.

 

[Mojzis]

It's been a while since I posted an update. I received a new position at work which has been keeping me busy. Luckily my father has been watering through this drought.

In spring we replaced four 20' poles with 29' ones. 25ft above ground instead of the 16-18 we have for the others. Last year we had several plants go well over the wires and many broke at that point.

We also installed a rain barrel system to water. Barrels up on hill collect water from a large utility garage and it's sent 500ft down to the hops. In theory it would work great. Who would guess we'd have the worst drought in years. My father has been filling buckets by hand and watering all the plants each day.

We used clips to hold strings down this year. When the plants got heavy the wind started breaking bines and roots. The result is each plant only has one bine per string now, some lost all bines. We went back to stakes for now.

Anyway, looking forward to harvesting shortly!

View attachment 1470223179917.jpg

 

[Mojzis]

Harvested centennial last week, columbus and chinook this week. I never got around to finding somewhere to take them. It's a bit frustrating. I have a few sacks of chinook sitting around I don't know if I'll get to!

If someone with a small farm has some advice for next time, it would be greatly appreciated.