As always questions lead to posts and we have been receiving lots of questions about the purchase of rhizomes for fall or winter planting. From a hop farming standpoint there are no fall or winter plantings of rhizomes. Rhizomes are cut from established crowns in the early spring and placed back into the ground at their new location as soon as possible. The shorter the duration out of the ground the better.
Something that the new hop growers out there should know is that first year hop plants established from prior rhizome cuttings so not usually produce many rhizomes if any. Instead the first year plants "focus" most of their time on establishing a strong root system which is more important from a longevity standpoint. In the second and third years rhizome growth will start to appear and cuttings can be taken from the plant to propagate new hop yards or to add to your home garden. In any case once the crowns have reached maturity they can produce upwards of 20 new rhizomes per year by some estimates. This means that the hops can take over large portions of your yard if left unchecked, which is why in our fields we disc and till the ground around our hills in order to keep the hops in check (we only want them to grow in specific areas of our hop yards, not all over every inch of our farm).
Due to the fact that we are not digging rhizomes a this time I have not photos...we will wait until spring for that.
About Me
- Hopsdirect
- Puterbaugh Farms is a fourth generation family hop farm. We have been growing hops in the fertile Yakima Valley of Washington State since 1932. We reside in Mabton where we currently grow over 12 varieties of hops including the following: Bravo, Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Cluster, Columbus, Galena, Mt. Hood, Nugget, Super Galena, Tettnanger, and Willamette. We also carry many other domestic varieties of hops and import hops from other growing regions around the world.
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