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Anyone Else Growing Hops This Year?


PhilboBaggins

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I have picked 200gm wet so far of my POR. The first 80gm gave me a tick under 20gm dried in a paper bag. The other is drying while im overseas. The rest will probably be ready once i am back mid next week. Im guessing 60gm dried from a first year plant in a pot. Enough for two lager batches. 

I am going to plant it out next year in a twin planter box. Will cut a rhizome off the plant i dig up and plant it next to the main crown. Some say wait till the 2nd year of growth but hey. Rules are meant to be broken. Been gardening for a while and most of the recommenden stuff is old wives tales.

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OVB, Warrants a bit of research then. Whilst I agree that soluble is transferred quickly to the plant, organic is effective from a slow feeding technique. I use a complete organic fertiliser (COF) on my vegies & COF works a treat.

Think you are wasting your money using Maxibloom as it has to much P which is not used by the hop plant and could do with more N. Potash of Sulphate (K) is probably more effective at flowering/hop formation time.

As I said will dig around to see what is working for others on the high yielding Hop plants.

Cheers

 

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I'm not saying organic doesn't work full stop, but plants can't use it as nutrients until it's broken down/converted to inorganic. I usually use a mixture of both types. During the seasons I was properly growing them I'd throw on some general purpose granular fertiliser as well as chook poo. 

I'm gonna give the sulphate of potash a run next season during flowering time and see how it goes, however I did have good results with the Maxibloom. If the results are the same or better then I'll keep using the potash as it is more easily accessible. I have to order Maxibloom online which is a bit annoying.

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I have no experience with hop plants but do with a few close species.... I always feed with sulphate of potash come flowering time once a month on a full moon and two weeks later a dose of molasses (2 table spoons to 4 litres water) on the new moon. Then again the potash on the next full moon and so forth. You will get increased yeild and weight of flowers. Sugar cane mulch will give a slow release of the molasses too but only apply once the flowers appear. Before flowering I usually just apply a few handfuls of compost to the base of the plant and gently work it in to the first inch of topsoil once a month always on a full moon. Works for me

Cheers, Lee 

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On 2/22/2019 at 3:45 PM, Greeny1525229549 said:

I have picked 200gm wet so far of my POR. The first 80gm gave me a tick under 20gm dried in a paper bag. The other is drying while im overseas. The rest will probably be ready once i am back mid next week. Im guessing 60gm dried from a first year plant in a pot. Enough for two lager batches. 

I am going to plant it out next year in a twin planter box. Will cut a rhizome off the plant i dig up and plant it next to the main crown. Some say wait till the 2nd year of growth but hey. Rules are meant to be broken. Been gardening for a while and most of the recommenden stuff is old wives tales.

The 200gm dried to 45gm. Picked the rest today. Another 120gm. A lot of these were small comes. Tomorrow im going to use the lot in a double megaswill batch. 45gm dry plus 120gm wet. Dry ones for bittering and the wet in the last 10 mins left to steep for another 15 mins. Quite happy for a 1st year. 320gm wet. Hopefully quadruple production next year with a 2nd year plant and another first year next to it.

Edited by Greeny1525229549
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/27/2019 at 7:43 PM, Greeny1525229549 said:

The 200gm dried to 45gm. Picked the rest today. Another 120gm. A lot of these were small comes. Tomorrow im going to use the lot in a double megaswill batch. 45gm dry plus 120gm wet. Dry ones for bittering and the wet in the last 10 mins left to steep for another 15 mins. Quite happy for a 1st year. 320gm wet. Hopefully quadruple production next year with a 2nd year plant and another first year next to it.

Had one of these tonight. Kegged both. One is lagering and the other i put on a week ago. Holy shit fresh hops make a big difference. I didnt think i could get a megaswill batch better but the fresh hops made a massive difference.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Its been a while between drinks.  After 3 years we now have 6 crowns with three different varieties - 2 each of Cascade, Chinnook and Victoria. This year we have harvested at least 1kg of each variety dried. So far I have brewed a wet hopped harvest of each and now experimenting with dried flowers.  Last batch was an IPA with Victoria as a bittering charge (estimated as 10%) and 150g of each variety at flame out no chill. 

 

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  • 2 months later...
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Given it's essentially a first year plant again I'll just let it go. For some reason I always got the best yields from first year plants, and I suspect it's due to the relatively warm winters up here compared to the hop growing regions, so I dug it up and cut a few rhizomes off and stored them in the fridge for about 6 weeks to try to mimic the cold. I'll probably do the same thing every year now if it works. 

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