Archive for Growing Hops
Overwintering Hop Plants
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Protecting Hops From 30 to 40 Below Zero Temperatures
Here in Bloomington Minnesota, the winter temps can reach 30 to 40 degrees below zero fahrenheit. Hops are hardy plants, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. When the ground has an insulating layer of snow, there is no issue. Where I have my hops alongside my garage, the wind can roar through and blow away that insulating snow leaving the ground unprotected from a hard freeze. I lost a Fuggle container hop this way – the wind blew away the mound of snow I had surrounding the large container. Left exposed, the Fuggle root stock hard froze and died.
Insulated Hop Plant
I leave the hop bines up after harvest so the leaves can gather additional energy for next year’s growth. I use a pulley system to lower the bines for harvest, then raise them again. The energy is stored in the root stock also known as the crown. After a couple of hard frosts and the leaves die off. then I cut the bines off just above ground level and bury the hop mounds with compost then cover with grass cuttings and leaves from fall mowing / leaf bagging. This extra insulation has helped to keep them alive through a couple of winters so far. They come back stronger and with more hop sprouts each year.
The leaves and grass also break down with the compost and supply some organic fertilizer for the hops. After my run in with a boron deficiency this year that almost killed my Magnum hops, I have and am going to supplement the soil with kelp and other organic mineral and trace mineral supplements to prevent any deficiency conditions. I also noticed that when I sprayed the hops bines with an iron and boron spray, the leaves became huge – up to 10 inches across! Apparently they have been deficient since day one even though I have had decent harvests.
If you live in a cold winter area, it wouldn’t hurt to do this your hops as extra insurance. Who knows, it may help keep a critter from digging up your hops root stock. The added nutrients will help too. That’s about it for this year’s growing hops updates. Unless of course my award winning hops win another home brewing competition – you’ll hear about it then!
3rd Year Hops Mid-August Update
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Recovered Magnum
3rd year hops mid-August update. This has been a challenging year for growing hops here in Minnesota (and probably most places). It started out with a cold spring, followed by a hot and humid summer and my brush with a boron deficiency.
As you can see, the Magnum hops shown to the left have recovered nicely. While the hop bines were stunted at 10 feet, some laterals decided to climb 4 feet higher. If you haven’t seen how bad off the Magnum hops were, go back a few posts or just click here –> Hops Boron Deficiency. They were just about dead. I am damn lucky I was able to revive them with a boron solution (after I finally determined thats what the problem was).
The Cascade and Magnum have a few small hop cones and are loaded with hop burrs. Same as the last 2 years, the Nugget are about 2 weeks behind the other 2 with burrs just starting. Unfortunately, it is hard to get a decent detailed picture posted without slowing down my blog. I will make it a point to get some close ups closer to harvest (and look into a beefier hosting solution – what do you expect for $8 a month – I host many other sites too).
No problems with deer. Rabbits munched a couple of hop sprouts when they were just starting out, but I had dozens of sprouts per plant so not an issue. I noticed quite a few Japanese beetles this year in my tomato garden. I have not seen any on my hops. Something has muched on some of the leaves but I haven’t seen who the culprit is yet. I am not worried as 90% of the leaves are untouched. I have learned to share a little in my organic gardening ways.
I tried something new and trained 5 or 6 bines per rope (I usually do 3 hop bines per rope). We will see what kind of harvest I get this year. Too many variables to really compare harvest amounts. Being third year hops, they should be near peak output. 3rd year hops, weather, deficiency issue, 5 -6 bines per rope – it will be hard to compare to last year’s harvest. We’ll see what happens.
With all the rain (above average) and humidity, I am surprised powdery
Nugget Magnum Cascade
mildew hasn’t hit. I see it or a similar disease on the leaves of my Lilac bushes, affecting my cucumbers and tomatoes. I have slime mold oozing from the ground around my tomatoes. I guess I have been lucky as far as my hops go. Let’s hope I don’t have any more challenges with the hops between now and harvest time.
I hope you all are having a good hop year. I would like to hear from you how things are going with your hops. Any “challenges” or “opportunities” to deal with this year? Any tips or tricks that would help this audience out? Make a comment – link is right below the post title “3rd Year Hops Mid-August” (don’t use the “Contact Us” form as only I see those).
Magnum Hops Recovering From Hop Disease?
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- Magnum Hop Disease Comeback?
Have my Magnum hops overcome their hops disease or whatever malady they are suffering from? All new growth – the laterals and new leaves are looking healthy. Hopefully the Magnum hop plant will survive and be 100% next year. All of the primary leaves on the hop bines have curled up and died (the dark, crumpled leaves in the picture). The tops of the bines are stunted at 10 feet and only new laterals (branches or side shoots) are climbing higher.
I still have not determined what the issue is or was. I am leaning towards a fungal disease similar to Peach Leaf Curl (thanks Mort) or a boron deficiency. I have ruled out an herbicide (from “herbicide drift” – carried by the wind) as this is the middle of 3 plants and the outside 2 are unaffected. I have not used any herbicides and neither has my neighbor.
The Hop bines seemed to recover after I sprayed them with Bonide Liquid Iron + micro-nutrients – containing: magnesium, boron, copper, iron, manganese, zinc which should cover a few different possible deficiencies. Copper can be an antifungal, but I don’t know if the amount of copper was sufficient to act as an anti-fungal in the 2 applications I sprayed the bines with. Whether it was a coincidence or not I don’t know for sure. The new growth has normal leaves.
Hops Topped Out May 29th
As the hop bines appear to be stunted and stuck at 10 feet tall due to whatever malady they experienced, I am not expecting as much of a harvest this year (3rd year should be more than second year hops). Who knows, maybe it will bush out and produce just as many or more. The Magnum is the most compact of my 3 remaining hops – Nugget, Magnum and Cascade. You can see from last year’s pictures (look in the category – Second Year Hops) that it didn’t have 4 foot laterals like the Cascade and Nugget did – maybe 12 to 18 inch laterals.
I just wanted to keep you updated on the possible recovery of the Magnum hops. I hope they have an immune system like humans and develop antibodies so they don’t get hit with this again. I will also amend the soil more with fish emulsion and/or kelp to provide all the nutrients they need. Top dress the soil with compost…
The Cascade and Nugget hops did top out by the end of May as I predicted. Even with the slow start due to the cold spring this year.
Hop Sprouts 2011
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4/3/2011 Albino Magnum Hop Sprouts
April 3rd I uncovered my hops as they were sprouting when I checked beneath the mulch. I keep them buried in mulch to delay their sprouting as long as possible. The reason for that is there are many freezes overnight until mid May in my area (Minnesota) . The hops seem to ride out most of the freezes – I have not lost them to frost yet.
They are albino white until they are uncovered for a day or two, then they take on purple/red stem and green leaves while they are small. My previous post on hop rhizome trimming was a week after this picture was taken. It has been a cold April here (so much for global warming) – this morning I had ice in my birdbath and the high today hit 40!
Cascade Hop Sprouts
Nugget Hop Sprouts
Due to the remnants of the winter that wouldn’t die, these hops haven’t grown much in 3 weeks. These hop sprouts have survived many frosts in the last 3 weeks. I am hoping for average temps soon, the average highs are supposed to be in the 60′s – like I said, it peaked at 40 today – sucks. Some of these bines are big enough to start training up the ropes.
I have been reading of other peoples hops hitting 10 feet tall already – obviously not around here. If the past is any indicator, these hop bines will be topped out by the end of the month(May). I haven’t been lazy about updating this blog, just not much to report on yet.
I do have one sad thing to report. My Fuggle container hop plant did not survive the winter. I do not have a root cellar or insulated garage to move it to for the winter. I covered it with 4 – 6 inches of leaves and then buried the container in snow (we had a ton of snow this year). I believe this was enough to insulate it from our 20 – 30 below zero winter temps, but one high wind day it blew the snow away from the container and left it exposed. My hops in the ground handle it just fine.
Container hops are not working well for me. Aside from the Fuggle that froze to death this winter, I lost a Mount Hood to wind (50+ MPH) last summer. Apparently this corner is not protected from the wind. I think I am going to stick with my three amigos this year – Cascade, Nugget and Magnum.
With a few weeks of sun, I should be able to report back that the hop bines have topped out again. I hope your hops are doing well – if you are not growing hops, you should be. Hop on!
Hop Bines Top Out
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Hop Bines Top Out
May 29th the Magnum hops reached the top of their rope (15 feet tall). The cascade and Nugget hop bines reached the top of their ropes May 21st (13 feet tall). I predicted by June 1st this would happen and apparently nailed that guess.
This is the second year for these hops. The first year is fun to watch how fast the hop bines grow, but that’s nothing compared to the second year. The first year a lot of the hop plants energy goes into establishing the root stock also known as the crown. By the second year, the crown is established and the sprouts come up earlier than if you planted hop rhizomes.
My hop sprouts survived a few frosts where tomatoes would have surely died. Hops are hardy once established. I lost a Mt. Hood hop plant I had planted in a container this spring. We had some 50 mph winds and it snapped them right off – the rhizome apparently couldn’t handle it – no more hop shoots / sprouts replaced them. They probably would have survived if I had them trained on a rope. They were about a foot long and I had not yet decided where to trellis them.
