Hop Rhizomes

General brewing information, questions and discussion. Topics that do not seem to fit elsewhere.

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shaggyt
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Organic pesticide

Post by shaggyt »

Compost tea or manure tea is suggested in The Homebrewers Garden to combat some pests and diseases...well rotted compost or manure soaked in water for a few days, then strained produces a "tea" like liquid you can spray with no remorse...can't say it will smell very good though...use gloves, lol.
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Legman
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Organic pesticide

Post by Legman »

What kind of pests and disease does it work on?

Mmmmmmm.......the smell of manure in the morning. :wink:
shaggyt
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Organic Pesticide?

Post by shaggyt »

Well, I was wrong about the pest part...sorry (I was at work and remembered the wrong thing).

Turns out that the "tea" is good for fighting off powdery/downy mildew and verticillium wilt...sprayed directly on the plants in the morning or evening. A baking soda solution can be used as well, 1 Tbsp/gal of h2o.

For soft bodied pests, 1 tsp of nondetergent soap in 1 qt water to kill. Test on a couple leaves, check the following day for burn...if the leaves look good, spray the entire plant.

So this might not be organic per se, but there are some nondetergents that should fit the bill. Shaklee's Basic H is an organic liquid concentrate which might be an option, but I'd have to do some more research...my mother swears by it and never misses an opportunity to discuss the many uses of this product. She uses a minute amount when watering her plants.

I found this on the most reliable source ever...the web :wink: :

"Basic H2 as a pesticide: Growing organic produce does wonders for your health and the enviroment, but pesticide-free can still mean bug-free. Dilute your Basic H2 to a couple of drops per spray-bottle, then spritz your plants as part of your regular routine. Not only will the bugs stay away but you might also find that they are bigger and healthier, as well."

Hope this helps Legman...it seems for pests the poop water is out...LOL!

Also, I am in no way associated with Shaklee. :mrgreen:
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Legman
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Compost/manure tea

Post by Legman »

Shaggt, I stumbled across the compost/manure tea you were talking about in a some gardening article I was reading.
They said that spraying your plants with this worked as a fertilizer that was absorbed through the leaves of the plant and worked more effectively than putting it at the roots.

Dave, from Freshops, told me to use a hot pepper spray to help keep things from eating your hop plants.
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Suthrncomfrt1884
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Post by Suthrncomfrt1884 »

Kind of off our current topic, but has anyone noticed their Cascade hops growing somewhat slowly?

I was under the impression that cascade was a high yield hop, that's why I purchased it. I guess knowing that, I might be jumping to conclusions...but shouldn't a higher yield, more disease resistant hop grow faster than others?

My Mt. Hood and Nugget hops have already got leaves on them and are about 4 inches out of the ground. Concidering I planted them last week, I think that's fairly good. My cascade just started poking through the soil yesterday.

Anyone else seeing this? It's not a huge deal to me since they've got all summer to grow...I was just curious.
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shaggyt
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Hot pepper spray?

Post by shaggyt »

Legman, go mace those pests...lol! :lol: Should be a lot less stinky too.

Seriously though, is that the kind of hot pepper spray to which Dave was referring? That's a very interesting application for mace.
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Legman
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Pepper spray

Post by Legman »

Shaggyt, not quite mace. It's a homemade pepper spray. There's many different recipes, just look it up on the net. But basically, its a few hot peppers chopped up and soaked in water with a drop or two of soap. Then put in a spray bottle.

Mace would be kinda funny though :lol:
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Legman
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Last Chance Rhizomes!

Post by Legman »

If you haven't got what you need by now, or just want more, Freshops.com has still got some rhizomes left. They're about the only ones I've seen with them this late.

I just ordered 2 Mt. Hood from them. I had a couple of bad rhizomes that didn't sprout, so I reordered. I wish I would have originally ordered from them, because they will replace any "duds" free of charge.
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Suthrncomfrt1884
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freshops

Post by Suthrncomfrt1884 »

I ordered all my rhizomes from them. They're all doing great. My mt. hood was the wimpiest looking root of them all but it's looking better than everything. I'm definately glad I decided to start growing. Can't wait til harvest time.
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Legman
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How does your garden grow?

Post by Legman »

Hey for those who planted rhizomes this year, how are they doing?

Well, so far I've got 4 really good plants. Doing the best is a Golding and a Willamette. They're about 6' tall and getting bushy.
Horizon coming in 3rd and Tettnang coming in last. It's been the least hardy of them all. Grubs killed one of the Tettnang, one of the Horizons never sprouted and 2 Willamette and 1 Golding have been getting off to a rough start due to pests eating them off to the ground multiple times.

I did end up reordering a couple of rhizomes from Freshops. I got 2 Mt. Hood and man those things were huge! It only took them a week before they started to pop out of the ground. Sure beats the piece of !@#$ rhizomes I got from my LHBS. They were scrawny twigs. It's taking them awhile to get going. Freshops is the way to go.
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How my garden grows...

Post by shaggyt »

Well, I had planned on some serious soil prep with a sand-topsoil-dirt mix, but for some reason, I did not...simple mix of dirt & compost with a sprinkle of topsoil. Also, my location gets a good amount of shade. So far, my plants get roughly 6-7 hours of direct sunlight...definitely on the minimum side for any good results but as they grow taller, they expose themselves to more early morning, scattered sunlight. And so, the results:

Centennial - second largest growth though it was trampled early but my dog or children (not sure which)...it keeps shooting up gradually.

2 Horizon - largest and smallest of the group...the big one has reached a little over 5 ft and lateral shoots are starting to sprout off the bine. The small one was also trampled, though it had the largest sprouts when they came from Midwest Brewing Supply...it was dormant for quite some time then recovered so we'll see...onkly about 1.5 ft now, and very thin.

2 Nugget - both about 2 ft tall, both have significant damage from some little beasties, though I cannot catch them. Based on their position, they get the least amount of direct sunlight, though they refuse to die.

My hope is that they establish more below the ground for next year though I will probably get some Centennial and Horizon cones this year.

I've got some pest control to work on and some fertilizing to do...time will tell. I think as the sun gets a little higher this summer, they'll be fine, just not as robust as some others. Too many old growth trees on my property.

Any best practices out there?
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Legman
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RE: old growth trees

Post by Legman »

Yeah, I hear ya on the trees. My entire backyard is like that....and it keeps getting shadier every year. I had to plant my hop garden in the front yard. It gets full sun all day.

I've been keeping up with the fertilizing and trying to pay attention to the leaves. They'll let you know if they're lacking in Nitrogen or Phosphate. http://www.freshops.com/hop-growing/hop ... -and-pests

As far as insects go, I've been using Neem Oil. It's an organic, broad spectrum insecticide, miticide and fungicide. I've used it on my vegetable garden the past few years with fairly good success. You can buy this at Lowe's.
http://www.planetnatural.com/site/neem-oil.html

I just put some on the hops today. Some of them are starting show signs of (what I think to be) powdery mildew. It's been really rainy here for several weeks and it's starting to grow on my veggies as well. But it's always better to take action as soon as you notice something or it could spread and infect the whole plant and spread to others.
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Suthrncomfrt1884
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Post by Suthrncomfrt1884 »

My hops are all doing pretty well. I've got one Mt. Hood, one Cascade, and one Nugget.

My Nugget hops are doing insane. They're at about 10' right now and climbing. They're only bushy at the bottom though.

My Mt. Hood is next at about 8'.

The Cascade is a bit wimpy at around 5-1/2'. It doesn't look to hot either. It's got holes in a lot of the upper leaves, so I'm hoping it will at least make it through the year.

They've all done a lot better than I expected for first years. I can't wait to see some actual flowers on them.
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billvelek
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My hop yard

Post by billvelek »

10 Fuggles -- third year -- huge with lots of fairly large cones and burrs.

7 Centennial -- three years old but transplanted last year -- a few short bines about 6', but most are 8' - 10' -- lots of tiny burrs but no cones yet.

1 Centennial planted this year -- bines are only about 5' - 6' and no burrs yet.

3 Magnum -- three years old but transplanted last year -- these have struggled every year here in Arkansas. Bines range from 6' to 12', and a fair amount of very tiny burrs just starting to appear; obviously no cones at all yet.

3 Cascade planted this year -- doing very well with most bines 8' to 10' tall; lots of burrs along with some very small cones.

It has been extremely hot and humid here for over a week -- mid to high 90's (my indoor/outdoor thermometer which has a probe in the shade has indicated close to 100 every day), and the heat factor has been well over a hundred every day. I was out at 7:00 this morning weeding around my hops and the sweat was just rolling off of me. The thoughts of July and August are starting to scare me; I guess I just need to move up north. :wink:

The only hop rhizomes that I purchased were from Freshops, and I had some mixed results, but I attribute that to the varieties not being really suited for my location. Freshops sent me two Centennial rhizomes which did 'okay' enough that the resulting crowns after one year were large enough for me to split and transplant them into seven plants; but I harvested practically no cones (less than an ounce). Of the two Magnum rhizomes that Freshops sent, one struggled for a while and then finally died, while the other did very poorly as well and produced no noticeable number of cones, despite that I babied them.

I made the mistake of planting all of my varieties in a single row, each plant three feet apart, and _then_ I read that different varieties should be at least five feet apart. So early in the second year I dug up the two Centennial and one surviving Magnum, and converted my first row into exclusively Fuggles. When I did that, I was very surprised at the size of the crowns, including the Magnum which had had very little grown; I split them and replanted, and managed to get three super-sized rhizomes (actually mini-crowns) out of the Magnum. After transplanting last year, they didn't do much better than the Freshop rhizome the year before. This year they are doing a bit better, but not nearly as good as my other varieties, including the new rhizomes I planted this year.

If any of you folks run into any really perplexing problems with your hops, my 'Grow-Hops' group (currently 3,007 members) has a searchable message archive with almost 8,800 posts which are mostly about growing hops and related matters (like how to make compost).

Cheers.

Bill Velek
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Suthrncomfrt1884
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Post by Suthrncomfrt1884 »

Bill, you won't have much luck getting away from the heat if you moved north unless you're going to Canada. Today in Rockford (20 miles south of the wisconsin border), the heat index was 100 degrees. It was the same yesterday and will be tomorrow. I'm worried about my hops, but supposedly they can handle the heat...
Primary - Belgian Dubbel, Belgian IPA
Secondary - Cherry Lambic
Bottled - Bourbon Barrel Coffee Porter, Double Chocolate Raspberry Stout, Imperial Nut Brown, Apfelwein, American Amber Ale w/Homegrown Hops, Breakfast Stout
Kegged - Bass Clone, ESB
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