Transition from burrs to cones.

Over a short period of time the burrs will begin to develop into cones. The bracts will form at the top of the burr moving their way toward the bottom. Once this transformation happens, we have baby cones on our hands. In our hop yards some of the bines will bloom a little earlier than others meaning we have hop cones forming at different stages in our yards.

Here on the farm our Cascades are beginning to turn while the super high alpha varieties in most cases are just beginning to burr. Everything here on the farm has to be planted so that we can harvest each yard at or near its peak. This means we must have varieties that reach maturity at different times throughout our harvest schedule.

Once again I'll leave it to the photos:

Bracts beginning to form near the top of the cone, they will continue down to the bottom forming a complete baby cone (these are Cascade).

Here are some complete baby cones, super high alpha.

Sometimes one bine will be an early bloomer, check out the Cascade on the left compared to it's friend on the right.

By the way the powdery mildew has been terminated this time around. Notice how it has turned brownish instead of bright white.