Tricking the plants?

[Gridlocked]

Have any of you guys pulled a chunk of rhizome inside for the winter and tried to trick it into thinking it was spring?

I have considered grabbing a piece, putting it in some dirt and throwing it into my office window for the winter.

Just a thought.

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

It's very hard to grow hops indoors, but it can be done if they get a lot of light. They'll do better if you leave them in the ground though. The plant needs the winter to store it's energy and get ready for the growing season the following spring.

 

[ThreeDogsNE]

I tried extending the growing season for some Nugget & Mt Hood rhizomes that I started late in the season last year. I put them under grow lights in the basement under a timer. Four 4' flourescent grow light tubes on a timer seemed like decent light. It doesn't look all that bright with plants under them. I had some skinny bines weaving back and forth on the stakes for several feet. Remember, these plants grow quite tall/long, and love full sun. Both of those are hard to imitate. In the window you will get sun, but I wonder if the photoperiod is long enough to sustain the plants. That's past my botany sophistication.

Of the plants I brought inside, only a couple survived. I might have overwatered them with exuberance. It's hard to tell with the dry winter air here. The survivors did no better than the rhizomes that I bought early this Spring and got in the ground in a timely fashion. In fact, this year's Centennial rhizomes outperformed all of last years indoor veterans. I think it was a waste of time, effort, and plants. This year, all the plants will be in the ground for the winter. The grow lights might start some vegetable seedlings early next Spring. The hops will wait for the sun.

 

[lurker18]

I am not sure about hops, but some plants need the cold break to get them to start a new cycle. If they don't get the cold break, they don't get reset and all they will do is produce vegetation and forget to set seeds or produce flowers. As I said, not sure about hops, but it might be needed.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

I dug up four rhizomes this fall. I stored them in my fridge for 3 weeks and put them in pots. Nothing is popping up yet, and I don't know what I'll do with them if they do live. I would like to try to force flower them when they are small; as a experiment to see the feasibility of indoor breading.

I tried extending the growing season for some Nugget & Mt Hood rhizomes that I started late in the season last year. I put them under grow lights in the basement under a timer. Four 4' flourescent grow light tubes on a timer seemed like decent light. It doesn't look all that bright with plants under them. I had some skinny bines weaving back and forth on the stakes for several feet. Remember, these plants grow quite tall/long, and love full sun. Both of those are hard to imitate. In the window you will get sun, but I wonder if the photoperiod is long enough to sustain the plants. That's past my botany sophistication.

Sounds like you needed more light. Thin and stretchy is the classic symptom of this with most plants.
To grow a hops plant all the way through flowering under artificial light you would likely need some huge lights. With florescent lights you will have a hard time fitting enough bulbs around the plant to get the needed light, as florescent bulbs take up a lot of space for their wattage. Using sodium lights would work out better, but you would need a few to get coverage on all of the growth. It could be done, but your electric bill will likely increase by more than the value of the hops.
There just so happens to be a huge amount of information online about growing a close relative of hops under artificial light. But that plants flowers are worth about 100 times more than hops, so the economics of doing so are quite different. From what I've gathered they flower based on the light cycle, i.e. 12 hour of no light makes them flower. If this is true of hops too, than a very small plant could be flowered, making for a feasible sized indoor plant.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

It's called vernalization and photoperiodism.

 

[dotnetdotcom]

The plant family Cannabiaceae includes two genera -- Cannabis, with one species (C. sativa, the source of hemp fibre and marijuana) and Humulus, with two, namely H. lupulus, the European hop, and H. japonicus, the Japanese hop.

Both genera have male and female plants, with the female producing the valued flowering buds. Rhizomes are used only to ensure the correct sex of the plant. Rhizomes are not like tulip bulbs that require cold weather before producing better flowers.
As DrJerryrigger mentioned, because of their close taxonomy with cannabis, you could assume that similar growing techniques work for hops.
In practical terms what this would mean regarding growing hops in your office window is:
-without additional hours of light, the plant would go into a flowering state and fizzle out.
-with additional hours of light added artificially the plant would go into a vegetative state and grow, but when you move the plant outside in the spring the effects would be negligible (like ThreeDogsNE experienced), because the vast bulk of the vegetative growth would occur during the summer.

I can only think of 2 reasons to grow hops indoors. For the novelty/fun of it or to cross breed different varieties.

 

[Retrofit]

Rhizomes do need a cold break. What I've read and what I've talked about with other Hop Growers is yes it's possible to flip a rhizome so it thinks winter is spring/summer, but it's energy inefficient and time consuming.
A hop farmer would never do it because their yield for the year is what they need. For me, the home grower, the yield of my plants is also what I need for the year. So I do think it's possible, and I understand how curiosity can motivate people to do crazy thing. I just don't see a need to produce a hop crop in the middle of winter or at the beginning of spring when my fall crop is plenty.
So basically I'm saying yes you can do it, but it's energy and time inefficient.

 

[david_42]

Rhizomes do need a cold break.

Not according to the folks at the High Alpha Acid project at OSU.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Rhizomes do need a cold break.

Actually, from various references I have read No, they do not. Which is why Hops are pretty heavily regulated against international exchanges. Give them a tropical or sub-tropical environment and they will devour almost anything.

It is the photoperiodism that controls the phases of plant growth and storage.

The seed, however, does need vernalization for germination.