Hops Update - July 17 Growth

A much delayed update for this week, but I'm finally getting it posted. All of the hops are doing well, producing cones and shooting lateral bines everywhere. The picture to the left is of the entire hop yard, all 5 plants. All 5 are well beyond the top of the trellis (8 feet) and running along the horizontal lines. Some of the bines are over 15 feet long! Right, are the 2 cascades, the bines are not growing much in length anymore, but are producing laterals and cones like crazy!

Left is a picture of the one goldings I planted. As of now, it is still not showing any signs of burrs or cones, but the plant itself is very healthy and is shooting out lateral bines everywhere. Hopefully I'll see signs of cone growth soon! Even with the vertical growth of the goldings, it was still creating strong lateral bines at ground level. I let these bines grow to approximately 2 feet in length, trimmed all the leaves off and then buried them in the ground to attempt to create rhizomes for transplanting next year. The picture on the right shows the 2 bines from the main stem being rerouted into the ground.

In the course of watering the plants, the mounds I started with have eroded somewhat, and in certain instances I can see the root growth off the rhizome. The picture on the left is one of the centennial mounds, and if you look closely, you can see the pale yellow/green roots. I'm planning on adding a shovel of dirt to the top of each mound to get all of the roots back below the surface. The last picture (right) is between the 2 cascade plants, looking up from ground level.