Growing hops

[gman1525229981]

Hi fellow brewers keen to have crack at growing some hops for my pale ales i live on the gold coast does know where i can buy plants or seeds to get me started cheers

[Otto Von Blotto]

You'll have to wait until June or July when the rhizomes start becoming available. You can get them on eBay, or check out other brewing forums - there's usually a few guys on there offloading some.

[gman1525229981]

Thanks otto will keep an eye out

[PaddyBrew2]

Don’t you need some fancy vertical growing setup to grow them 

[The Captain!!]

Nope, a dead tree would work.

[Otto Von Blotto]

A trellis would work better than a dead tree, but it doesn't have to be anything fancy. I just made a wooden frame about 4 metres high and run some rigging wires down from the top to the soil. Works well.

[gman1525229981]

Cheers for the replies guys i have some left over framing timber so will use that to make a frame up.Thanks for the idea otto

[Pezzza]

On ‎5‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 10:15 AM, Otto Von Blotto said:

A trellis would work better than a dead tree, but it doesn't have to be anything fancy. I just made a wooden frame about 4 metres high and run some rigging wires down from the top to the soil. Works well.

Are you getting some ok results Kelsey in Bris ?  I had thought there were issues with day length... 

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Didn't get anything this season but not living with the olds anymore has made it difficult to properly manage them.

When I was there I had reasonable results for the location, but oddly I found with all three plants I had, that the yield of flowers was best in the first year they were in the soil. It dropped off in subsequent years. I put this down to the fact that the rhizomes came from down south when I bought them and had been subjected to much colder winters than we get, which is an important factor in the following season's flowering. 

I have to get a planter box set up here, and also dig up the crown that's still at the olds. I'm then gonna cut a few rhizomes from it and store them in a ziplock bag in the fridge with some of the soil, for a month or so, before planting them again. I figure this will kind of mimic the cold winters and maybe I'll get a better yield from them. I'll probably have to repeat the process every year or two, otherwise they'll just keep giving dwindling yields. 

[Alpaca Brew]

They really need the freezing temps of winter.  Every year I cut all the vines off and cover them with straw for the winter.  Last year I cut off some rhizomes and planted them elsewhere.  They took but did not grow too well.  This year they look much stronger and I think I they will produce some hops.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeah, we don't get literal freezing temps here even though it feels like it to me

[The Captain!!]

Because freezing to Kelsey and myself is around 15c ha ha ga

[Otto Von Blotto]

Exactly it got to 10 last night but with the wind it feels about 4 or 5.

[The Captain!!]

I work with an English guy who said to me the other day, if I ever told my dad I was cold and wearing a jumper in the Pilbara he would disown me. He was serious too. It was 14c

[Pezzza]

Yes some plants respond to cold - vernalization is the term - and photoperiod - day length... and pretty sure Humulus lupus is amongst them.

So I reckon cooling your rhizomes is a good idea Kelsey and definitely worth a try - probably want to keep them moist - but never done it myself.

 

Thing is though - I reckon when yer up north closer to the equator there is the issue of day length still - photoperiod.

Interesting that when the hops were shipped in - that they did well in the first year - by the sounds of it irrelevant of the lack of day length?  Or maybe that too will reduce production over time as well as lack of cold?

NSW Ag-note on hops says the following:

Latitude is important in hops production, because it determines seasonal day length which, in part, drives canopy growth patterns and timing of flowering induction.

NOTE how they say - in part..  and note that this inf is related to commercial operations where plant production good performance is critical or sends you broke. 

They go on further...

 Figure 1 shows the location of existing commercial scale hop farms in south‑eastern Australia. In the early years at this location, commercially acceptable production was only possible by applying supplementary lighting, to top up marginal daylight levels. More recently, a hop breeding program in South Africa has selected a number of new varieties that are better adapted to this latitude, and commercial production is now possible without supplementary lighting.

So maybe you need to put them in the fridge over winter... and then apply some extra lighting in summer? 

Or there are new varieties that are less dependent upon the original plant species' vernalization and photoperiod requirements ? 

Sounds like French hill weather though is good for them ; )

[Alpaca Brew]

2 hours ago, The Captain!! said:

Because freezing to Kelsey and myself is around 15c ha ha ga

Here during the winter we have temps around -20°c.  If the sun is shinning it really doesn't feel that cold.

[The Captain!!]

Just now, Alpaca Brew said:

Here during the winter we have temps around -20°c.  If the sun is shinning it really doesn't feel that cold.

Yeah nah

i really could not do that 

Edited May 29, 2019 by The Captain!!

[Otto Von Blotto]

Less daylight hours here would be having an effect. That first year Cascade I harvested enough for a couple of batches. That's enough for me, flowers can be a bit of a PITA to use compared to pellets. Besides, I can't be bothered setting up a lighting system

And yeah -20 can go get effed 🤣🤣

[Alpaca Brew]

4 hours ago, The Captain!! said:

Yeah nah

i really could not do that 

The positive side is no bugs.

[The Captain!!]

7 hours ago, Alpaca Brew said:

The positive side is no bugs.

Yeah I can understand that, I bloody hate flies with a passion.