Hop Growing 2016

[windrider]

Some questions - Should I be feeding my First Gold with any feed? (It seems to be doing okay at the moment).
I’ve also read that you should remove some of the leafs near the base of the plant to stop pests? As you can see in the picture some of the older leaves have some brown speckles. Should i be worrying about these

[Oakey22]

I just give mine a bit of general fertilizer every now and then

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[seymour]

...I’ve also read that you should remove some of the leafs near the base of the plant to stop pests? As you can see in the picture some of the older leaves have some brown speckles. Should i be worrying about these

Trimming out the lower leaves can be beneficial, but not until later in the season, when the overall plant is MUCH taller. For now, you want that extra leaf surface area to maximize photosynthesis.
No, don't worry about minor specks like that (yet, anyway). Yours are off to a great start, "just relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew"

[seymour]

An update on my first-year transplants at a nearby urban community garden.

Top left: Flyer x O.P.
Top right: American/French hybrid male alongside a Cobb Golding female
Bottom left: First Gold
Bottom right: a wider angle view of the teepee trellis

[tourer]

My pearl and East kent are up to about 12 foot. They have leaves almost bigger than i can span my hand across must be that liquid manure i've been feeding them, No blackfly or greenfly yet, fingers crossed.

[seymour]

Today, June 27th, my hop bines reached the top of the trellis. Now the plants will shift their energy to the side-arms, on which the flowers bloom and eventually turn into the "cones" used for brewing. Here's hoping for a big harvest!

[windrider]

My dwarf Prima Donna has reached the top of the fence (6ft). I’m now trying to train it across the top of it. The base has gone a bit wild with side-arms. I’m guessing this is normal?

[timmydog]

My dwarf Prima Donna has reached the top of the fence (6ft). I’m now trying to train it across the top of it. The base has gone a bit wild with side-arms. I’m guessing this is normal?

It's how mine looks. There are various opinions about cutting them off or not. The impression I get is to leave them while the plant is young and trim them once it's established, to maximise the yield - the flowers tend to grow on the side-shoots of the main stems...

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[seymour]

My dwarf Prima Donna has reached the top of the fence (6ft). I’m now trying to train it across the top of it. The base has gone a bit wild with side-arms. I’m guessing this is normal?

It's how mine looks. There are various opinions about cutting them off or not. The impression I get is to leave them while the plant is young and trim them once it's established, to maximise the yield - the flowers tend to grow on the side-shoots of the main stems...

When we talk about trimming to improve yield, we're talking about removing extra leader bines emerging from the ground (in order to force the plant's energy into upward growth of the best bines, and then into maximizing side arms.) Definitely DO NOT remove side arms, that's where the flowers occur.

[seymour]

What's that, you ask?

It's a healthy hops plant I just sprouted from seed collected from the wilds of Kazakhstan in 1993. Amazing, right?!

We brewers hear lots of The-Sky-Is-Falling commodity reports about hop shortages, crop failures due to climate change, pests, diseases, etc…all of which is true, I'm sure. But this little WALL-E seedling of mine is proof those of us who survive the apocalypse will still be able to bitter our beer for many years to come.

UPDATE:

[timmydog]

It's how mine looks... the flowers tend to grow on the side-shoots of the main stems...

Definitely DO NOT remove side arms, that's where the flowers occur.

I think we're actually in agreement here: on my plants, the growth at the bottom *is* from extra leader bines, but it's a useful clarification for amateurs like me.

I will have to share some photos of the flyer x OP plants that you inspired me to grow - one is almost to the top of my house!

[timmydog]

If you want to be pedantic about it that's fine, but hop growing terminology is: Hops grow by following the direction of travel of the Sun. So East to West, Left to Right and Clockwise!

Pedantic? Which way do they grow in the southern hemisphere?

[seymour]

I will have to share some photos of the flyer x OP plants that you inspired me to grow - one is almost to the top of my house!

Sounds great, I would love to see that. Did you know it was revealed Flyer is a dwarf hop?! I'm still trying to determine if any of my seedlings inherited the dwarf growth habit. It sounds like yours probably is not dwarf (depending on the height of your house, I guess).

[timmydog]

Sounds great, I would love to see that. Did you know it was revealed Flyer is a dwarf hop?! I'm still trying to determine if any of my seedlings inherited the dwarf growth habit. It sounds like yours probably is not dwarf (depending on the height of your house, I guess).

Here's a couple of pics, the first of the bottoms of the plants (the left hand one is a Prima Donna cutting, taken summer last year) and the one on the right is what I think is a Flyer x OP seedling, again grown summer last year. That's the plant that's reaching the satellite dish in the tall picture. The Prima Donna only comes half way up the ground floor window.

I did plant some other seeds from a different batch of hops at around the same time (will have to look through my emails to remember what the other variety was), but I was fairly sure that this plant is a Flyer X. That is quite a height difference if one is half dwarf, half something else and yes, I know genetics doesn't work like that and the Prima Donna might not be happy there, but still!

hops-1.png (148.97 KiB) Viewed 6507 times

[seymour]

Wow, timmydog, thanks for sharing. Yeah, if that hop has any dwarf genes, I think it's safe to say they didn't express. Another way to tell is the distance along the step between leaf nodes. Prima Donna/First Gold is dwarf, take a look at how close the leaf nodes are together. It appears that stem gap is noticeably wider on the taller plant. Cheers!