Q1: What is the bed width, bed spacing, bed preparation, pole spacing for the hopyard by Simple Earth Hops?
A2: The best I can do is tell you the way I did it... I would like to preface my answers with a heads up that the Simple Earth Hops hopyard is different than most hopyards. It is small. A quarter acre. Because of the current scale challenges with harvesting / cone separation equipment NOT being available to small scale commercial hop farms in Southwest Wisconsin -- this hopyard is designed for hand picking old school style. The hop rows are placed between the poles and we are not using V-shape stringing onto the upper trellis cables which seems to be the convention for larger hopyards using harvesting machinery.
BED WIDTH
This was determined by a few factors. Tilling, our tiller was 5 feet wide using the implement on the tractor then on the second round, just before planting we tilled all the rows with a hand held tiller which was 2 feet wide. By the time we tilled with the hand tiller, the native orchard grasses and native hopyard prairie plants had already begun to grow back. With the plants in the ground, we completed the hop rows by mulching. This mad the completed rows to be a final width of about 3 or 4 feet wide each.
BED SPACING
The Simple Earth Hops hopyard is designed to accomodate 10 feet between each row from the center of a row to the next center of the row (actual aisle width spacing including the bed width is more like 8 feet of orchard grass.
POLE SPACING
I researched this for some time. The hopyard poles are spaced 50 feet apart within the rows and 10 feet apart between each row. This 1/4 acre hopyard is small enough that I was able to engineer the trellis with intent of being able to handle and extra load on the trellis, ie wind. Large commercial hop plantations use 25', 30', 40' and 50 feet spacing between poles.
The Simple Earth Hops hopyard has plants spaced between 4.1 feet and 3.8 feet. Each row (100') included 25 plants. Each row has a pole on each end and a pole in the middle of the 100' @ 50'. With that one side of the row (50') was planted with 13 plants spaced @ 3.8' apart and the other side of the row (the other 50' on the other side of the center pole) was planted with 12 plants spaced 4.1' apart.
The next six FAQs come from author Matt Allyn who is writing a homebrew book and asked me to do my best answering questions about growing organic hops.
Q2: Why do you choose to grow organic hops?
A2: It’s all about doing the right thing. We have decided to grow hop using sustainable farming methods because it is the right thing to do for the place we live, who we live with and for the future of a healthy economy. For us, we go way beyond growing organic. In this day and age, this planet and all things that live on it are interconnected. We are adamant about providing a healthy, undisturbed, diverse ecosystem for our hop plants to fit in and grow with.
A3: Conventional hops use pesticides, herbicides and fungicides which are really bad for our planet. As a brewer makes a choice not to use conventional hops, they are supporting a better planet for tomorrow’s society.
Q4: What varieties do you grow?
A4: Mount Hood, Cascade and Perle are the main varieties grown at Simple Earth Hops. We also have 4 hop plants which have been growing native which we harvested (with permission) at a historic site near Dodgeville. Our farm also has native hops growing at 20 plus feet up in a tree. We may harvest these in the future for test brewing with. Not all of the Cascade and Perle variety plants came up this year so we will be replacing a number of the hop hills with new rhizomes.
Q5: Do you think organic varieties of hops taste different, or maybe better? Do you have a favorite variety?
A5: I have yet to brew with any of my hopyard’s three varieties in order to compare flavor profiles but from what I can smell (and with the little bit of hop teas that I have made) the varieties are in line with conventional varieties purchased from wholesale or retail. I am still searching for the perfect variety to grow which will become my favorite to brew with also but for now, my favorite variety to grow and brew with would be cascade. Cascade produces the most sweet, citrus flavor which adds the perfect compliment to any beer, in my opinion.
Q6: What are the biggest threats to your crop? Are there any unique challenges to growing in the Midwest?
A6: The weather has the potential to destroy the hop plants which really are just flowers and thus are very delicate. Strong winds, storms of hail or frozen rain and other acts of God have a huge potential to damage the hops. This is true if for organic and conventional hop growers. The second most devastating threat to the hops are hopyard pests like caterpillars, aphids, spider mites and so many more. One of the biggest challenges to growing hops in the Midwest is our regions lack of processing facilities for hops. As a hop grower in Wisconsin, I only have one choice for a vendor who I can use to pelletize my hops.
A7: Besides for telling everyone to trust nature, the best advice I would like to spread to new growers is to make sure to keep the hop shoots thinned to just 3 or 4 bines once they reach 2 feet long, provide your plants with plenty of mulch which helps lock in moisture so you don’t have to water so much, provides additional nutrients for the hop crowns and don’t be afraid to harvest rhizomes and sell those as extra income.
The next three questions come from an email sent in by Andy M. via email.
Q8: "...with the ¼ acre [hopyard] and amount of plants you have (250) how do you get the harvest in on that many plants by yourself?"
A8: The real test to our harvesting practices will come next year, in 2011, when the plants will be more mature. The hop plants during this year's growing season (this is our 1st year cultivating hops in the hopyard) spent most of their energy producing root structure and thus did not produce a sizable about of hop cones. This year we harvested hops on August 17th and August 26th. On both occasions we worked with different groups of hopyard volunteers who dedicated their time to help us hand pick the hop cones from each plant. This practice of old-school hand harvesting seems to be a really good fit for our ability to cultivate beer inspired and hop growing related volunteers to the hopyard for events. The information is available to all on how long it takes to hand pick a single plant and with that next year we will be mixing our beer social events with harvest time using our local brewers support to organize a larger hopyard harvest farm party. This year's harvest event attendance (which was only publicized on Facebook and a limited number of email invites) was received by a count of 111 farm guests - and these were just the event attendees who signed in at the beer table. To answer the question, we don't harvest by ourselves, it's a community effort on a community farm with all of us hand picking old-school style.
2010 hop harvest photos
For another time... "how do you stop the spread of rhizomes so that the varieties don't mix and; of the varieties that you are growing, have they done well growing in the Midwest?"
Do you use a irrigation system and how did the hops hold up with the drought this summer?
ReplyDelete@Timmer - yes, we use drip irrigation in the hopyard! The hops did ok with the funky weather just smaller output/harvest.
ReplyDelete