Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Locally harvested black locust hop trellis poles

One of the greatest assets to living near the Wisconsin River - besides canoeing, camping, and swimming - is easy access to black locust trees. The sandy banks (read: exactly the kind of soil which black locust trees thrive in) of the Wisconsin River are completely covered in black locust forests.
Here are a few pictures of cutting the trees in preparation to move them from the woods and load them onto the trailer.


It's super exciting to cut the black locust poles ourselves for use on the Simple Earth Hops trellis!



Using black locust poles for the hop trellis provides an inexpensive, long-lasting and local source.

We are using a Forestry permit from the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources to get access to the black locust forests within Wisconsin State property to harvest the hop trellis poles for Simple Earth Hops. Here is a map of the black locust harvesting site.


View Simple Earth Hops Google Map in a larger map
Brewed up by Unknown
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3 comments:

  1. ChandlerJune 14, 2011 at 4:47 PM

    Hi Matt


    I looked at your hop trellis design presentation amd noticed you dint have a cost or source of where you obtained your rellis poles. I am in Iowa an looking to start a hopfarm and trying to fid sources of poles.

    Cheers,

    Chandler parsons

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJune 15, 2011 at 4:31 AM

    Thanks Chandler, hopefully the article above helps. The Forestry permit is available from your State DNR - in WI its called a Forestry permit, this one is typically used for harvesting firewood and Christmas trees - a small time permit costing us just $.99 per tree. Our WIDNR was very open to giving us much more than what we used. You can also check out the comments on each photo for more info here: https://picasaweb.google.com/fattymattybrewing/SimpleEarthHopsBlackLocustTrellisPoles

    ...and...

    https://picasaweb.google.com/fattymattybrewing/SimpleEarthHopsHopPoleHaulin

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shoshanah MarohnMarch 18, 2014 at 11:25 AM

    What is it about Black Locust that makes them your choice for hops poles? Would it work to use Ash instead? We have some forested parts of our land, and I'm thinking we could just cut down a few trees right here, and not have to drive them anywhere, but I don't think we have any Black Locust that is easily accessible. By the way, thank you so much for posting all of this information! It's a real help.

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