Growing Hops 2021

I also tryed hop sprouts, no thanks, not for me.

Usually, I cut back the first growth early and in Vt, that's sometime in late April then select 2-3 shoots to train, but, I grow in the ground, not in pots.

 

Correct me if wrong, but I'm guessing you cut all new growth back and then pick the healthiest from the re-emergent growth.
How tall do you typically let them get before the first cut back?
Same question for when you thin them out to the best 2 - 3 shoots?

I wasn't sure when to thin them out last year, so I started training the best three when they began falling from their own weight and cut the rest down. Shoots continued sprouting for what might have been weeks, and I cut them as they got about 3" - 4" tall.

Late April....would that be around the last average frost date for your area?

 

last frost is around the 15-20 of may
usually around mid april give or take a couple weeks due to either extended cold or a super early thaw and hot temps, i use my heavy duty brush cutter with plastic blades to cut down any dead vegitation and also am cutting any sprouts coming up usually 2-5 inchs tall.

after that , i pick 2 or 3 of the most agressive shoots, usually around mid to late may, and cut the rest back to ground level. usually if i have time, Ill continue cutting every 2 weeks or so with the brush cutter.

yep i know, alot of usuallys but with multipal buiz to look after, its anything but hard and fast schedual.

 

My chinook are starting to perk up. I’ve never cut back the first growth, or trained/cut back the weaker growing bines but this year I may have to try that and see how they do

 

Massachusetts here. I checked mine today, and |I have a couple sprouts just starting to poke through. I'll usually let them get about a foot up, then cut back the first batch.
|I'll let 3 or 4 go up once I get the strings up. |I do have to periodically cut back through the summer or more come through - |I should dig them up and trim back.
Mine are 6 years in this location, 2 of them I had another 5 years back and transplanted from another place.

 

id keep them cut back, then next spring before they sprout, dig and remove several rizomes,

this will keep your plants form spreding and less mowing. i trim mine BOUT EVERY 2YEARS

 

This is the third year for both Cascade and Goldings. A week ago I cut the first growth to the ground. Yesterday I made the first application of neem oil to the shoots that have sprouted since cutting them back.

The Cascade made about 30 cones last year, and the Goldings produced zero cones in the first two years. Hoping for a better yield. Looks like the rhizomes should be trimmed next spring. The Goldings shoots are popping up about 3 feet from the original location.

 

My hallertau mittelfruh is up to 4ft and my centennial about 1ft. cut back and eaten about 100 shoots from two plants so far. Cut 10 rhizomes that are shooting up now and will plant them in hedgerows in the coming weeks

 

How do these do with grazing deer?

I am at the point where anything with leaves below giraffe grazing height is eliminated. Tulips last 1 day. Anything remotely succulent is chewed down. If I am going to finally invest in growing some hops I'd like re-assurance that it is not a deer nutrition program.

Cheers

 

Deer have a well-worn path that they travel frequently within 40' of my small hopstand, and they've walked through it too. They eat the greenbriars, rhododendron leaves, blackberry stalks, young daylilly leaves and other succulents but have never touched my hops, even the most tender shoots. I don't know if it's neem oil applications that keeps them at bay, or if they're teetotalers and don't like anything that reminds them of beer.

C'mon man....take the plunge.


ETA: Whitetail deer in my area. I've read, but cannot confirm, that mule deer have been known to eat hops plants.

 

All summer long I have deer walk right past my hops to eat my other garden veggies. Never had anything eat them, except Japanese beetles. DAMN BEETLES!

 

Yup, Japanese beetles do like to eat hop plants. I set up Japanese beetle trap bags about 25 feet away to manage those pesky bugs:



Cheers!

 

I'm going to try that this year. I've heard good and bad thing about using the traps. Good, in that they work. Bad in that they attract beetles from all around the neighborhood into your yard. I have a corner lot so I'm thinking if I put them in the furthest corner from my hops, near the street, there is not a whole lot over there that they can hurt.

 

I planted a pot of Centennial? hops like 7 years ago. And I have never done a damn thing to them. They always come up, but just the other day I noticed a few other stragglers poking up.

Maybe this will be the year I do it right!

 

deer, like ripper, are all around my hop yard and they have not been a problem.


Of course, since i am commercially growing vegies, in VT i can shoot just about anything that damages, kills or gets after my crops and i do. seems they know, now, not to get too close, hahahahaahahahaaa

 

strung new lines to all hop plants in the rain today. all except goldings growing well, but they are coming

 

Been away from here in for a while. Came back for a thread like this.

Mine are well. I need to get out and cut back the first growth. Will try to do that today. I have some new cascade to put in where my nugget was. Looks like this year is going to be busy for me. Also, I cut new wires so I can have to strings per hill on separate wires. The few I doubled up last year were nuts during harvest as they stuck together.