Split a crown today and took pics

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cuinrearview

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Location
Delton, MI
So I've been waiting to split up my mature Cascade so that I can have three plants instead of one. Today was the day and I decided to take pictures because I know that we all love hop porn. The way that this plant has grown after six years in the ground is pretty interesting and I think that I know why and I'll show my guess at it at the end of the pics.

Here's my assistant pointing to the mother plant with the boxes anxiously awaiting some crown at the ends of the garage. My plan is to run rope up each end to to the eave then turn them up to the peak. The middle box will run to the outside of the top of each window and then up to the peak. I've measured and it'll easily be 20 feet for each plant.
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This is what I'm digging. She's been in there for six years and there are 30+ shoots in four clusters coming up. Should be good to go
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About halfway through the dig. No tools used, just my hands. My assistant was making sure that all of the worms got out and were transferred to the other boxes(she yelled at me a few times!)
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You can see some pretty significant roots emerging in this photo. They seem to like the wall of the garage pretty well.
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More coming
 
Hope the mods are on top of me because I had to delete this thread twice to get the pics right. First time hosting and linking here and thumbs just didn't do it justice because of the ****ty lighting on the end of my garage.

Anyways, here she is in my hand
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And another photo with the two big honkin' roots that ran barely under the ground along the side of the garage and past the new box I put in last week. Total length to the end from the crown is around eight feet
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Another photo of the crown
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Time to split it up and get it in the dirt. This is the middle box, most of the two big roots waiting for dirt.
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Here's the shoots that I left exposed in that box. There's only two of them but with the massive root stock they should be fine
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This is the box on the right in the first photo. Lots of shoots and a good amount of stringy roots
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And the third box. This one kinda got two clusters of shoots but the root stock was just as healthy. We'll see how they do.

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All cleaned up and ready to grow
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This is why I think that the roots hugged the garage wall. We're only a couple feet above the water table here. At least they have a nice view

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Sadly, I decided to trim off the roots. There is still plenty of healthy wood to supply the plants growth. We've had some flooding here pretty much since I started this plant as a rhizome and I think that is why it tried to keep high and dry along the garage. The source of the flooding (beaver dam) has been removed and the plants should be more free to spread out now.
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That's a whole lotta root!

I'll post back on the health of the plants, but I'm really not worried. This plant has always done well despite the location. Last year I had 450-500 cones despite the growth tips being torn off on the sixth of June and it had grown to the roof by that time.

Not sure if this is a really relavant post but I had fun doing it and I thought maybe someone could learn from it. If you have any questions about the crappy pictures feel free to hit me up.
 
Good series of photos ,The rhizomes can be cut between each group of nodes.If you are erplanting make sure all nodes are covered with dirt
 
I actually covered more shoots with dirt than were originally there. There were plenty to go around!
 
Just wanted to update. All three plants are doing well. The shoots in the outside boxes are leafing out and the one in the middle has new shoots breaking ground. I did have some existing shoots die back after the transplant but have healthy growers in all three boxes. I culled all but six shoots in the box that had two clusters to keep them in check with the root stock.

I'm not sure how this would have turned out with a younger plant, but there was so much growth to work with on this one that a little loss of new growth has been taken in stride.

Will continue to update with pics as the season progresses.
 
Six years is correct. They never really spread out because of the water table. They basically broke ground in a swamp every spring. I imagine if the big roots that traveled along the garage wall had been around for long enough I would have seen some sprouts at the end of that when they found suitable growing conditions. The second years are rooting in the more traditional starburst pattern. I have them in a dryer spot and in raised beds.
 
Do you have them just growing up the side of your garage, or do you use string or something else?
My setup is very similar to yours and I was looking into other way ideas on how to get them to go up the side of my garage.
 
It's been a while and I wanted to update because this project has been a wonderful success so far. All three of the plants are taller than the original plant ever was. I ended up training three bines from each plant and it looks like each plant will produce more than their mother ever did by a long shot. I will admit I only got serious about growing last season and that was a bust but it's still pretty impressive. I honestly expected to be starting over with each plant this year. Anyway, on to the pics:

First is the model from my OP with a wide shot

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Beautiful ain't she? I mean my daughter!!

Here's a couple of the growth at each eave. This is where the sidearms are going nuts and have had to be trained to keep from rubbing stuff. It's actually kind a mess and I'm hoping that bugs and strangulation won't be a problem.

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A pic of all four strings at the peak. I don't have an exact measurement but the outside two are around 18 ft. and the inside one is around the same. The original plant always slowed and flowered after the solstice and from the looks of the buds this one is following suit this year.

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One more of a main bine size, rope is 1/4":

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The only problem I've had with growing has been the outside plants and training. The first eight feet went well, but when I had to turn them I was on the ladder every day until they got about half-way up the (5/12 pitch) roof-line and then the droop in the rope helped me. It really didn't bother me because I'm out there talking sweet to her and staring anyway:cross: The inside plant trained itself.

I've had an exceptional growing season here and am looking forward to (hopefully) having enough cascade to share with a couple of local brewers. I can't wait until the younger plants produce like these three are looking like they will!
 
Nice job.
I like how your kid is now starting to "strike a pose"!:D
Just wait till next season, your house won't be big enough for that plant.
 
Wow, that s impressive. I am growing only three varieties this year and only two have shown up so far. The cascade I planted has already produced two bine shoots for cloning, and I have a possible third clone coming of my newly grown Mt. Hood plant. I can't wait to have something like what you have on the side of our house here.

I have a question for anyone that would know. If someone were to take say the poster's setup and at the end of the year carefully pick your hop flowers leaving the bines attached to the crown, would you be able to winter-store the hops and get more rooted rhizomes from the buried bines? I ask for a specific instance of burying/planting these bines in a DIY EarthBox that will remain closed all winter. Do you have to have the bines totally buried from the crown, or can just a bit be exposed going into the box? Can one root bines that aren't attached to the crown, as in is there a certain time one can cut the bines free of the crown and have them totally enclosed in the EarthBox? I'm just hoping to get more insight into hops so I can have a plethora of cascade next year.:rockin:

Still, once again OP, NIIIIIICE!!!
 
Not sure if this answers your question WM but the bines COMPLETELY die back to the crown in the fall. There's no saving them. I've never heard of anyone propogating in the fall.
 
I have read on here that burying the bines makes for new rhizomes next year. I'm just asking about the few inches of bine that would be exposed. I am just wondering.
 
That's what I thought you were asking. Everything shuts down in the fall as far as the bines are concerned. You'd want to get the bines buried now and it wouldn't matter if it was attatched to the crown or not. Spring is the time to try out propogation with these plants. I didn't take a picture but the center plant in the pictures sent out an underground root that smashed into the wood on the box and started to sprout. I dug the whole root(maybe a shoot(?), about 6" of it underground) up and moved it to another part of the box. It's growing fine and I'm actually looking for a local brewer to come and take it for next year.
 
WM, I used this method to propagate one bine last fall right after I harvested. There's a small bine that's growing a few inches. I had left about 1-2 ft of the bine exposed from the crown and buried a length of about a foot underground, and cut off the remaining part of the bine.
 
Right at harvest would work as well. The only thing that matters is some time for the bine to start to root. After that it's on it's own as far as the crown is concerned.
 
Not sure if anyone was wondering but I wanted to wrap this thread up with some pictures. I'll probably be harvesting within the next few days after the screens are emptied of the sterlings that are on there now.

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ya KNOW WHAT TEES ME OFF ABOUT THIS? he doesn't even need to water the dang hops that are all around his property. he's only like 1ft above the lake level here and his hops grow like feaking mad... mine on the other hand look like someone purposely cut em off halfway through the growing season.










he knows i kid since i just shared a brew with him yesterday;)
 
ya KNOW WHAT TEES ME OFF ABOUT THIS? he doesn't even need to water the dang hops that are all around his property. he's only like 1ft above the lake level here and his hops grow like feaking mad... mine on the other hand look like someone purposely cut em off halfway through the growing season.










he knows i kid since i just shared a brew with him yesterday;)

Hey, at least I help a brotha harvest some hops:tank:

And I still think we're a chainsaw away from a WHOLE lot more:rockin:
 
oh a chainsaw would help us out immensely but i don't want art getting mad at me for wacking down the posts that those wild ones are growing up:D


and i think the power company might get mad at me if i was to cut the pole that's holding the wad down the road from me. i tried today but was unsuccessful at removing any hops worth speaking of, unfortunaly they are rapidly turning now.


im gonna seal up those hops from sat tomorrow and weigh them also let you know what i ended with at work on mon.
weght was 1/2oz....oh well
 
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