When to harvest for seeds?

[Microscopist]

I took a cone of my Mathon yesterday to check for ripeness, looks like it's got a couple of weeks to go. To my surprise there was a single seed in the cone - a nice fat juicy one but it wasn't ripe.

This means there are probably one or two seeds in the other cones as well and I'm keen to collect them. Since they're so sparse I don't really want to go pulling a cone apart and wasting seeds to check how they're doing so I'd like to know if the seeds are likely to be mature when the cones are 'brewing ripe' or whether I ought to give them a couple more weeks after that to make sure.

 

[DarkCoder]

You have to harvest the seeds when the cones are completly dried (brown) on the plant, this way you are sure that the seeds are mature. That means that you have to sacrify some cones.

 

[nagmay]

Seeds on cones picked for brewing are less likely to be viable. Best practice is to let a few cones with seeds fully mature. B-hoppy recently posted about how to spot seeded cones (baby bumps):

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/growing-hops-seed-397219/index16.html#post6300538

Make sure to collect way more seed than you thin you need. Germination rates are often abysmal.

 

[Microscopist]

It'll be a major sacrifice but I think I can forgo the hops this year, it's only a first year crop so wouldn't be enough to make a good brew. Cheers

 

[Microscopist]

I've been a bit more pragmatic, checked a few cones of each branch and just left the one with the most seeds.