We hit water!

We started drilling a well late last week and have successfully hit water. It's always nice when things turn out like you hope. We also just received a new piece of machinery for our pellet mill we have here on the farm to pelletize our hops before we send them out to brewers. The piece we a little heavier than expected which made unloading it a fun problem to solve. In the end we had to use two forklifts, one of each side of the truck, then we had the truck drive out from under it while the forklifts remained in place. Now we have to figure out how to install it, considering this piece will be housed about 15 feet off the floor. Tomorrow we will be getting out the tape measures to solve this dilemma.

The well drilling equipment at work near the picking machine.
Pellet mill upon arrival, weight approximately 7,500lbs., width 8', weight distribution - very uneven and on one small pallet. This all adds up to make a very interesting morning of trying to move the mill.

Lots of future cones are in development in this hop yard.

Now we wait

Currently we are just waiting around for cones to mature. This does not mean we are doing nothing, but I can think of nothing exciting to share right now. Mostly life consists of fixing broken pipes, cleaning up graffiti on our machinery for the fourth time in two weeks, taking flat tires to town, and keeping on top of the pest and disease situations. We have also finished getting one of our picking machines completely prepared for harvest and are moving onto getting the other one ready as well. Please email me some questions if there is a topic you think I could touch on between now and harvest time.

Arching Hops

There comes a time in every season when the hops reach a point we can no longer drive a tractor down the rows without taking the risk of getting the strings and bines caught tearing the bines to the ground. To combat this we use a method called arching to pull the bines from each hill together in a group allowing more room for the tractors to pass down the rows.

Arching was more common in the older fields that were planted in the 7 x 7 format, but we sometimes still have to arch on the newer fields as well. When arching, one pulls all the bines from the hill together by hand then proceeds to wrap and tie a small piece of string around the whole group, usually the strings are about two feet long and tied three to four feet from the base.

Here is the string we use to arch our hops together. In the photo there are 4 bines pulled together all coming from one hill. This string is placed at a height of about three feet.

Close up of the knot used when we arch hops.

This is the view up a row that has been arched, notice how all of the bines on each hill are tied together about 3 feet off the ground. This allows the tractor to pass through with ease, in cease you are wondering we use a large cab tractor in the hop yards.

Hop Picking Machine and Kiln

People have often asked, "What is a hop picking machine?". Some think it is a vehicle that we drive through the fields somewhat like a combine or grape harvester. In reality we have a building we call our hop picking machine. They are very large and highly immobile structures that contain a network of moving parts which work to separate the cones from the bines. Our goal on the farm is to have less then 1% leaf and stem in our cones by the time they are sent to the kiln to be dried.

Hop picking machine (foreground) with the kiln in background.

The truck will be driving through the two large doors seen above and will pull up under the hooks seen in the photo below. The bines will be placed one at a time upside down on the hooks by hand to be run through the machine.

Conveyors running from the machine to the kiln and back. The conveyor in the foreground takes the wet hops to the kiln to be dried while the other returns the hops once they are dried to the baling room. (One bale in the United States weighs approximately 200 pounds)

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.

Sweet Shirt!

The internet has been down in Mabton, Washington so I have been forced to dictate this post over the phone to my fiancee (she's a great sport).

We are really excited about the new hop shirts we got in and have been wearing them non-stop! In our opinion it is some of the greatest hop artwork we have seen to date.

I was able to take some really great photos today and am hoping to post them tomorrow (dead powdery mildew!, hop cones forming, and arching, which I will explain later).

Pictures in hop fields are awesome!


I love this sky.

Are my hops in bloom?

In the past couple days, we have had many people ask how to tell if/when their hops are blooming/cones are forming/or if they have spurs or burrs.

It is already past the time in our season where most of the lateral growth occurs. The laterals will leave the main stem. Usually this happens near each set of leaves that are on the main stem, and you will note that the leaves occur in pairs and the laterals normally shoot off in pairs from opposite sides of the main stem. After the laterals have had a chance to grow the hops begin their next stage.

The formation of hop cones (on the farm we do not call them flowers) will be on the lateral growth not the main stem of the bine. Currently we are at the stage where they new cones are in the form of small burrs, which look like little spiky balls.

I believe photos will help more than words:

Close up of hop cones beginning to form.

Nice shot of burrs forming in a super high alpha yard taken today.

Check out all the lateral growth coming from this Cascade.

Closer view of the Cascade from July 3, 2008. Note all the cones beginning to form on the laterals.