I took a half day off in middle of May and met my Dad in Wooster, Oh at the OSU Horticulture Research Facility. They have a small hop yard for experiments and analysis and hosted a free hop bine (yes bine, not vine) training event. I already knew how to train bines, it’s clockwise and up (following the sun). However, I’ve been considering growing hops at the family farm in Marietta, Oh and I wanted to check out the yard and squeeze all of the information I could out of them.
The first thing I noticed was the huge 18 ft trellises. The next thing I noticed was the drip irrigation system on each row that was hooked up to a pump (pictured below). On this day, they were feeding nutrients too, just Phosphorus & Potassium for now. They will start feedings of Nitrogen later in the season. Generally, hops like slightly acidic soil with plenty of Nitrogen. Hops also likes lots of water an inch a week but they don’t like standing in water, that is when mold and mildew can set in.
Speaking of mildew while we were training the bines Chelsea, our gracious host found two plants already starting to show signs of Downy Mildew. See the black spots underneath the leaf below. Also, it can dwarf the plant make the bines stubby. This along with powdery mildew and Prohibition is what wiped hop farming out of the eastern part of the United States. Treatments for mildew and pests should be started before you see signs of them, they said liken it to a flu shot.
The question that was asked multiple times, was “What hops grows well in Ohio?” They kept answering with the sound advice of, “It doesn’t matter which hops get the highest yield in Ohio is, if you can’t sell it. Talk to your brewer and find out what varieties they want.” They went on to say that some brewers are very interested in working with Ohio hops and others are not, citing “They have too many other things to worry about.”, not happy with quality and consistency of hops seen so far.
I still want to research further before taking the plunge. It takes a lot of startup money, around $10k an acre and it takes 2-3 years before you see a full yield. Not to mention the constant fighting of disease, aphids and other pests. The upside is hops can yield above 1000 lbs/acre and the demand from craft brewers and IPA lovers doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
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Richard Sheppard