So first Year Hop Growers - how'd it turn out ?

[rod]

i got small plants from richters and planted 2 hallertau and 2 cascades the first week of june.
all 4 are between 16-18 feet tall (used miracle gro twice and always water with fish pond water)
i see a bunch of burrs on them all but they are tiny.
my camera battery died - will try for pics this weekend.

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

i got small plants from richters and planted 2 hallertau and 2 cascades the first week of june.
all 4 are between 16-18 feet tall (used miracle gro twice and always water with fish pond water)
i see a bunch of burrs on them all but they are tiny.
my camera battery died - will try for pics this weekend.

Another fish pond watering guy! There is something that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about watering with water that has been conditioned by living a natural life for a while. I seriously worry about our over chlorinated water in these parts! I'll be taking pics soon too if everyone promises me that those little spikey buggers are not a total embarrasment!

 

[rod]

my tap water here is loaded with chloramines - i didn't want to use it on my hops

 

[Laughing_Gnome_Invisible]

my tap water here is loaded with chloramines - i didn't want to use it on my hops

Me either! I went to the trouble of making a connection to my pump outllet so that i can water the whole garden from my pond. The first half of the summer I was totally self sufficient from my pond alone in terms of water (lots of rainfall). If anything happens to me, the missus will have no clue on how to use all my half assed modifications. :cross:

 

[tentacles]

All talk and no action in this thread... I put mine in dirt around early June. Planted 1 magnum and 1 cascade, the magnum did not survive. The cascade has done well, I think, it's about 9 feet tall. Lots of daylight this far north, but we did have some cold spells in june. Even a bit of snow, though it didn't stick, and some slightly below freezing temps one day.

https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=11965&cat=1
https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=11968&cat=1

Are those cones forming, it looks a bit different than the branching I've seen to date. Not that I need hops this year, plenty in the freezer.

 

[7Enigma]

my tap water here is loaded with chloramines - i didn't want to use it on my hops

Bah! That's free nitrogen for the plants! Unfortunately the chlorine is probably not good for the soil however (killing all the microbes that make fertile soil so good), so you are probably better off not using the tap water if you can avoid it.

But if you live in an area with low chloramine levels (say 1-2ppm) it is like a free very VERY weak fertilizer. It shouldn't harm the plants in the least and will supplly a bit of nitrogen.

 

[T-Hops]

Overall I have been happy with my hops this first year. I planted 5 rhizomes and all 5 have grown and produced hops the first year. The cones are still small but hopefully they will grow more in the next few weeks.

 

[snazzy]

1 centenial grew good but no cones.

2 cascades washed out by heavy rain.

3 nuggets that I think might eat my house, they have a ton of flowers on them. We'll see if they turn out to be a ton of hops.

 

[megavites]

Ok<
1st year and i have to say I can't wait to start picking some hops.

I have alot of cones on my Cascade, my Northern Brewer came on strong later and had a bunch (smell great) and my Willamette is pulling up the rear.
I keep looking and as far as I've read, you start culling the herd when you see them go from yellow (lupin covered) to brown edges on the leaves.

I notice some of the upper Cascade cones have really opened up, but I thought you harvest at the end of August. Some here have gotten a second harvest, so I'm a little confused as to when is the perfect time. I don't want to pick to soon.
All in all, I have to say I'm pretty happy with the first year growth. They hit 16ft and would have gone higher if my trellis was bigger.

 

[Schlenkerla]

So far awesome......https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=74054

 

[Baldy_Beer_Brewery]

Cascade: Ordered one rhizome, they sent two but one died. The one that lived got off to a slow start but now has many nice sized cones. I estimate I may get an ounce off of it this first year.

Fuggles: Slow start as well but the last couple of weeks has been growing several inches a day. I don't expect to see any cones this year.

Nugget: Took off well and has about twice as many cones as the cascade.

Willamette: Twenty plus feet tall, took off fast but thus far no cones. I see what I think will be cones soon on it though.

Right now I have them climbing tomato cages and then climbing twine up the side of my garage. Next year I will have a support made out of pipe and I expect the second year to really do well.

 

[7Enigma]

Ok folks, finally got around to taking some pics. Today was the day I started harvesting hops on my cascade(s). The following pictures are from 3 "1st year" cascade plants spaced apart by about 2 feet around an 8ft tall pole with a U-shaped piece of metal at the top to allow for more top growth. These are "1st year" because they were actually very small plants taken from my dad's friend. They were 6" sections of bine with a bit of root on them so not like the rhizomes you get from an online store. Without further ado, here's the shots:

Picture of the cascade setup *AFTER* the first harvest. Please note for those not sure they have the space this was done in a triangle of land about 1/2 the size of an office cubicle. So you really don't need much space, just a fertile soil, and ample sun and water. You're looking at my neighbor's car and driveway in the background...yeah they weren't thrilled when I told them what I was doing.

Here's a closeup shot looking up near the top where the U-shaped piece of tubing is installed. I think this turned out to be a really good idea for those of us that have to use the teepee setup. It allows for a lot more space at the top where the majority of the hops are produced.

And here is the first harvest.

I've been really confused as the proper time to harvest, and the hops are in many different stages of maturity, even on the same plant. Notice in the foreground the brown edges of the leaves. I was told this is a good indication they are ready for picking. And I can already see the next batch of flowers starting so it will be a daily picking event for the foreseeable future (since the pole is only 8' high I have a small ladder that I use to pluck them right off the bine without damaging the plant). I used an old school Jansport backpack, wore it backwards so it was in front of me, and put a bag inside. This way I could use both hands to pick and not have to worry about pulling a bine hard to get the cone off (probably another indication some of the hops are still not ready to harvest).

Dang it! My edit got deleted after I tried to use another smiley. In short, it seems pictures make hops look less ripe than they are, so this may be why some don't look ripe enough when in person they may be ready. I'm too lazy to rewrite my comments in detail!

 

[Okiebrewer]

Ok so I have hops spread all over the place. I have one first year Glacier at my dad's place growing all over his deck. It took a very long time for that one to take off but last I heard it was about 8 feet tall and no cones. That was a few weeks ago though so who knows. I have 3 plants at my girlfriends parents house. A cascade a sunbeam and a fuggle. They are all growing well. The sunbeam was in the lead at somewhere between 8-10 feet but is slowing now and is actually looking pretty crappy from the oklahoma sun even though it is shade half the day. The cascade is being fairly sluggish but still going and the fuggle is about 6-8 feet tall. None are showing flowers. At my mothers house which is nextdoor to mine I have 8 plants. 2 of each magnum, nugget, williamette, and centennial. All are growing and 2 have reached the top of the 18 foot trellis I built there and are covered in buds. I have no idea which 2 have reached the top since my mom has lost the paper that I wrote down which hops were which. At least she's taking good care of them. I don't think I will be able to salvage any brewable cones this year as I won't be home until sept. but at least they'll have a head start for next year. I gave a friend of mine about 10 rhizomes of fuggles and helped him get them started before I left. We planted two rhizomes per mound since they had been in the fridge so long and I wasn't sure how they'd do. He was very amused to tell me that they have taken over 1/4 of the back yard and he has nothing else to string them on and once they reached the top of their 6 foot stakes they went back to the ground and then just made a huge bush. I realize this is not the healthiest way to grow hops but when he told me how fast they grew I couldn't help but laugh. He said that you could see where weeds had tried to grow around them only to get strangled out. I told him they were called the garden wolf but he wouldn't listen.

 

[The Soft Underbelly]

7Enigma, tell your neighbor that i said he can shove it. Those hops are a thing of beauty! Excellent work man!

 

[98EXL]

so far 2 ounces of B. Gold and 1.5 ounces of Chinook.

Fuggle has died, and 2 centennials are no more than 1' tall.

I'm going to rearrange everything for next year come this fall....should be awesomer next year. I also have to make my trelis I think at least 25' tall

 

[Jeff48]

centennial 10ft 4 cones
cascades 14ft 50+ cones
magnums 8 ft. 20+ cones
goldings 8 ft 0 cones

it could be worse

 

[rod]

these were planted around june 1 this year from plants from richters
the trellis is approx 18 feet tall

 

[clemson55]

Cascade is putting out some hops now, probably 25-50 in the works. Fuggles has a few forming. Mt. Hood nothing to show even though its the largest plant.

 

[7Enigma]

7Enigma, tell your neighbor that i said he can shove it. Those hops are a thing of beauty! Excellent work man!

LOL, it's on my property, he has to deal with it whether he likes it or not. Sure it looks like a flag pole with some twine attached during the early part of the season and winter, but once the foliage starts to fill in I think it would be tough to say it looks ugly, even if you don't like vines/hops. I plucked off 2 yesterday since we were talking out front and rubbed them between my hands and let him smell. His eyes lit up and said, "Man that really does smell like hops!". Hopefully he's finally turning the corner. The wife (his), I could care less about her feelings.

 

[Honey]

Love the pics, what did you do about drying?

 

[Kilgore_Trout]

LOL, it's on my property, he has to deal with it whether he likes it or not. Sure it looks like a flag pole with some twine attached during the early part of the season and winter, but once the foliage starts to fill in I think it would be tough to say it looks ugly, even if you don't like vines/hops. I plucked off 2 yesterday since we were talking out front and rubbed them between my hands and let him smell. His eyes lit up and said, "Man that really does smell like hops!". Hopefully he's finally turning the corner. The wife (his), I could care less about her feelings.

If it comes down to it, I find that a bit of free beer solves any problem

 

[brrman]

I never saw a single flower in 3 plants. And then 2 weeks ago they were all pretty much destroyed in a hail storm. First year = disappointed.

 

[Seabee John]

I think it was an over all good year with mixed results. Of the 6 original variations I planted originally I had only fuggles survive. It grew to about 14 feet and yielded about 1/2 oz of cones (dry). I then planted (later) one each of the following: nuggets, cascade, & kent goldings. The cascade and the goldings grew to about 12 feet but yielded maybe a dozen cones each. My nuggets on the other hand grew like a friggin weed (16+ feet) and yielded about 1/2 pound - dry and is pictured below:

Over all, I'd call it a success. I learned the importance of consistent watering, good and bad fertilizing, and when to harvest (nuggets anyway). Now I'm researching the best method of producing rhizomes. I've already planned to expand to 6 cascade plants, six fuggles, 3 nuggets, and 3 goldings.... of coarse, if any of you want to provide advise on switching those numbers up (I've got room for 3 beds of 6 plants) let me know what you would plant and why. I pretty much stick to browns, pales and stouts.

 

[salad 419]

I never saw a single flower in 3 plants. And then 2 weeks ago they were all pretty much destroyed in a hail storm. First year = disappointed.

Same here, with Chinook, Goldings and Willamette. But, We had a wind storm (77 mph winds) that unwound the bines from the twine and left a big mess.

All of the plants grew to about 7-8 feet. Although until August, I grew them horizontally.

I wasn't expecting much of a harvest, but it would have been nice to see a few cones.

 

[zoebisch01]

I got about 8 oz of dried Cascade from my first year plants. Second year Brewer's Gold got me around the same dried (2 plants). Tettnang got hit by Japanese Beetles and the one Magnum did well but I missed the window.

 

[McKBrew]

A whopping .3oz from my Fuggles. Quite a bit more free hops from someone else. :

 

[Zymurgrafi]

First year plants. All in dry cone ready to brew weights:

1 Cascade = 9 oz.

1 Centennial = 3 oz.

2 Wild/Feral (planted this year from rhizomes I dug up last spring) = 10 oz.

1 Golding = 0 oz. Struggled to survive.

I am suspecting from the aroma and other clues that the feral hops may be cluster. I just brewed a one gallon SMaSH batch to see how they are using them for all hop additions. Guess to know for certain i'll have to brew one with commercial clusters (if I can get any) to compare.

I could have picked more of the wild/feral ones but since I was not sure of their quality; and i was tired, I figured I would wait to see how they are. I would have had more Cascades if it weren't for the damn aphids! I estimate at least 3 more oz. dry. Oh well. I am happy regardless.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

3.5 pounds total dried harvest from a plot of 3 second year plants and 10 first year plants. At the least I harvested 4 ounces from some after drying them and at most I harvested 1 pound dried from others. A few yielded no harvest at all.

At this point all but 2 plants have been cut down and will very soon be prepared for overwintering with a judicious layer of compost.

 

[CarlLBC]

All first year hops.

4 Cascade: 8 oz and still has cones
4 Mt. Hood: .5 oz, all grew well, high hopes for next year
4 Willamette: zilch, all grew well, we'll see
4 Sterling: nada, all grew well, we'll see

they all did very well considering the south Ga climate. the thing that suprised me was the ant problem. at the base of the hops I stripped the leaves to keep moisture down. ants ate the bine area near the ground. kinda like eating a corn cob. don't ask me why. maybe the bines taste as good as the flowers. once I noticed (I admit I was slacking) I seven dusted and had no further problems but the bines died before they produced. this happend to all but the cascades. I have bad ant problems all over my property, i'll be sure to keep an eye on it next year. the roots seem to be fine and more bines started to sprout soon after the others died.

 

[Rhino17]

Here is southern Ontario, I planted 2 cascade, 2 chinook and 1 willamette.

The willamette was the quickest to grown, reached the top of my 10ft line, and then didn't produce anything. Huge numbers of sidearms, but no cone production.

The Chinook both grew well (but only 2 bines each), and produced a total of 4 oz dried between the 2 plants.

For the Cascade, only one rhizome grew (and only 2 bines). Once they reached the top, I accidentally broke the tip of the growth shoot off of one of the bines. The other was allowed to grow horizontally for 3 feet, and then it ran out of room. From this one plant, I had a dry yield of 8.5 oz.

So, overall, a pretty sucessful first year. Looking forward to year 2!

Cheers,

Rhino

 

[TommyBoy]

This was the second year for my Cascades. 7 vines. The tallest one hit 14' before July then the top cooked on the roof and bushed up at the top. The others were about 12-14' by September. They dried out to about 4oz. I did no preparation to the soil. I will probably pay attention to that next spring to beef them up a little.

 

[antonyw]

I planted four cascade, two chinook, two fuggles and two centennials this spring. Two of the cascades went into an old wine barrel with miracle gro potting mix, I got about 1.5 - 2ozs dried from those two plants and they ended up being about 12-15 feet in length. I got another 1 oz or so from the two other cascades planting in the ground in full sun. The centennials croaked and never did anything. The fuggles were very sluggish at only a foot or two long but are still growing so hopefully they are working on their roots and will do better next year. The chinooks grew to about 8 feet long and gave me maybe three or four cones. They were planted right next to the cascades that yielded nicely in their first year. I'll have to go back and read the thread now and see how everyone else did.

 

[Dig]

Plants are still growing. I have been getting small harvests all year long. I can definetly tell what the photoperiod does to the plant; the internodes get really short and the leaves get small. The plants are still healthy and growing however, so I will just let them go until the look ready to be cut down. They are very bushy and quite large for being grown in pots. I probably have a few ounces from six plants.... only 2 of the have really produced, although all six have shown signs of flower production.

Will continue to update. I still have several plants to harvest and some are kicking out new flowers.

 

[fins2rit]

planted 8 plants
2 cascade
2 centi
2 chinook
1 will
1 mt. hood

All grew real well hitting about 12 to 14 feet each with allot of side shoots toward the base but ZERO hops. I am hoping that the roots decided to grow crazy and next year i will have a nice harvest..

Got my fingers crossed..

 

[Stout Man]

Plant

Yield​

1 Chinook

21 oz​

1 Zeus

19 oz​

4 Nugget

40 oz​

1 Cascade

2 oz​

1 Hallertauer

1/2 oz​

1 Northern Brewer

0​

1 Fuggle

0​

1 Kent Golding

0​

1 Mt. Hood

8 oz​

My Fuggle did produce about 10 cones but the Golding and N.Brewer produced nothing. They do however have absolutely massive root systems. I am amazed how much the root system grew. All plants are first year. I'd definitely be willing to give away some of my nugget plants for any low alpha acid hops. It is a pain to store all those nugget hops, I end up with 13 vacuum bags about the size of a 8 1/2" x 11" that are 1" thick. I know how ungrateful I sound but seriously, how am I going to use up all those nugget hops?

 

[Blackline]

I also planted for the first time this year. I chose the chinook since I live in Phoenix and the weather gets a little warm

I planted 6 and 5 came up. They looked and smelled great! Before harvest I went on a vacation for a week and when I came back my cones were toasted slightly from the sun. I harvested them anyway and dried then froze them. You guys think they are still good? I will get a photo of them to show how toasted they got.

Here are a couple of pics of the plant a couple of months in. The wife only let me put up a 8' stake... Picasa Web Albums - Mike Moffett - HOPS!

 

[Beeropolis]

Planted 2 first year plants at my apartment, so no in-ground but into a large pot I planted these. The Cascade plant grew large and with multiple harvests got approx 2oz of hops. On the other hand my Kent Goldings plant grew as large as the Cascade plant but no harvest. Some very small cones started to form in September but a cold spell happened in VA and that stopped it quick.

 

[avidhomebrewer]

My first attempt at growing 2 plants (Cascade and Chinook) went horrible this year. Earlier in the year, the chinook was going great, about 5 feet tall. Time to transplant and one of the neighbor kids pulled it out of the ground and it decided it had had enough and died for the year (hopefully only the year). For the cascade, it didn't do much at all, especially when the dog got a hold of the rhizome and decided to chew on it. That was the last time she ever decided to do that again. I then transplanted it and now it is about 2 feet tall, ready to die for the year. Hopefully next year both will come up and grow like I heard hops can.

 

[Stratotankard]

Let's see...

6 plants- 2 each Centennial, Golding, and Willamette. One of my Goldings turned male on me, the other never got taller than about 3'. My Willamettes did ok height wise, but then got destroyed by catapillars. They both have about 4 leaves a piece left. My Centennials both did very well height wise (draped over the top of my 9' trellis) but only one has any cones at all. I've harvested 3 cones so far and there is at least one more still one the vine (still tiny but growing). Both plants are being attacked by the damn catapillars, but I'm working hard to keep them alive. I'm trying not to use any sprays, just to keep my garden as organic as possible, but next year I think I may have to break out the chemicals to deal with the little buggers.

I know I need to water more than I did this year. Maybe a drip irrigation system is in my future. My trellis almost got blown over during some severe weather, so that needs to be redone (its really wobbly anyways). Meh, I wasn't expecting much this year, so I guess 4 whole cones is better than nothing.