I hope this is best written in here, I have found there is some interest on how to grow hops. You could simply sow hops, and grow it. Voilá. But you would not have umbels with a smooth and strong flavour profile and good yields.
So first hops or Humulus Lupulus is member to the Cannabaceae family, and like most people know theese are either sex. For our purpose we want female plants, wich can not exclusively be started from seeds, but here I would like to discuss starting from seeds. A male plant will pollinate the female, this then will produce seeds but not the umbels we are after. You can keep a male plant if you want but you must make sure it does not pollinate your female plants.
Start your seeds outside in whatever container you'd like or directly. Do so in late fall or early spring when temperatures are around 5 C. As far as I know those temperatures are mandatory, stratification is necessary for about 1 month at 5 C. Cover the seeds with ~3 mm of soil. Germination will take 1 to 3 months. They will then grow and need close to no assistance in the first three years. Place them into the ground as soon as they outgrow the container. In the third year the plants are likely to flower for a first time and therefore reveal their identity. At this point they possibly do already want climbing structures of any sort. Now you want to either uproot all males and toss them away, or put them in a seperate container that you could move around or decide on being busy each year "sterilising" the males by either chopping them completely or removing all flowers on the plant that grows up to 7 meters in height. Under no circumstances mire than one male would be of much use.
As soon as you have your female plants ID, you need to set up climbing structures for them, I attach photos how they traditionally look like when hops is grown commercially, but everything will do. Optimal is to give them the opportunity to grow as high as 7 meters, but configurations where they dont grow to those heights or grow in horizontal configuration after reaching a certain heigt are imaginable. In the traditional setup the support itself is made from two twisted wires but again many things will do.
Next you want to introduce your hops in the beginning of each growing season to its supports, note that hops will always twist clockwise and should be started that way, otherwise growth will be inhibited until it has changed direction itself. You need to have 2 or 3 vertical supports and want to introduce about 3 or 4 shoots to each support, no more. Clip all remaining shoots at the base. I like to do trimming later, in case i damage a shoot when winding to a support. Of course the healthiest shoots are wound to the supports. In good conditions the hops will now grow fast, in average 100 mm a day and up to 350 mm a day. The lower foilage must be trimmed as the plant grows up to about a meter, this helps prevent deseases. The plant will now develop the aromatic umbels, wich can be hatvested as soon they have fully closed and appear compact and solid, this should be the case in fall. The product should be dried. At the end of each season the hops will store nutritiens from the shoots in the root system and the shoots will die back. The plant must be given time to store its nutritiens, as soon parts have died theese can be trimmed, or the shokts can be trimmed as a whole as soon they died. I like to go in two steps, I ket the lowest meter for some extra time. The plant will be able to cycle through the years like described for up to 50 years.
Usually the plants are propagated from a female plant this ensures feminism and equal quality. Cuttings can either be taken from the shoots, or the root system is uprooted and cut up.
To produce seeds we can make use of a male plant if present, either keep it locked inside and selectively pollinate with a brush, and seal the flower with a piece of light cloth. Or place the male plant / let the male plant naturally grow next to a female one.
Some facts:
A single plant will yield hops for the production of up to 400 Liters of beer annually.
One hectare would commonly host from 3.600 up to 4.500 plants.
Said hectare requires 2.000 - 3.000 hours of work each season.
Different breeds exist, commonly diverted in bitter hops and flavour hops.
Hops is a repellant to many insects in libaries wardrobes and more.
Hops has calming and relaxing properties and is said to enhance sleep when put into pillows.
Male hops is legally restricted in many commercial hops areas, and also without such law in respect to the farmer one should not cultivate male hops, pollination would destroy the harvest.
I like this link:
http://entheology.com/plants/humulus-lupulus-hops/If at any time someone wants hops seeds please let me know you will gladly be given. Also I'd be very happy if said person would then document progress. Have fun growing
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Topic: Growing hops (Read 6259 times)
