We got some of the hops up past the mid-way point of the trellis. This was mostly a building year, putting down roots and next year...lookout. There is also a layer of straw mulch and compost down for the winter.
Here is what a fully loaded hopyard looks - huge vines requiring huge amounts of nitrogen in the soil to send them up the 20 feet they'll grow in a season.
Golding hops are from Kent, England and are a lower-level bittering hop with alpha acids of about 5% more sweet than bitter. Named after the person who bred them.
Hallertau
Hallertau hop, named after famous hop growing region in Germany. This is where it all started with hops. These hops are a low acid hop and so are good more for aroma than bittering and are included in the Noble Hop exclusive club including Tettnanger, Spalt and Saaz. All low bitter, high aroma hops named after the area they were first grown in to reflect each hops' terrior (tare wa) the specific taste created from being grown in a specific area. In hops this is called a landrace hop.
Tettnang
Tettnang hop, another noble hop from the southern edge of Germany or about the middle of the European continent. A land race hop ('race' as in cultivar tied to a certain region) with a history of open pollination.
Willamette
Willamette (willamette damnit) Oregon hop, created here in the United States by way of gene manipulation in 1976. Its a triploid, meaning it has 30 choromosomes instead of the typical 20, and more is better.
This is what the poles look like from a distance. The poles range from about 18 to 22 feet above the ground and are salvaged telephone poles that were damaged by bears.
Installing one of the 22-foot poles for the hops trellis. The pole goes four feet down into the ground and will hold a braided steel wire that will hold up the hop vines. A metal plate is put on the rim of the hole and the pole is raised into the hole.
About two weeks after planting, the Willamette and Hallertauer rhizomes looked pretty good. The Goldings didn't seem to be doing quite as well, and the Tettnang even worse. It may be that the Goldings and Tettnang don't hold up to cold storage as rhizomes as well as the other varieties.
Before we got started, we tilled up a row about three feet wide and turned in some manure and composted hay. We then used wooden posts and a string to mark out a straight line.
Next we took a hundred foot tape and stuck a pin flag every three feet to mark the planting spot for two rhizomes. We chose to put two rhizomes in each location to avoid having any gaps in the line where a rhizome might not take.
After having marked the location of each pair of rhizomes, we went down the rows with shovels or post-hole diggers and dug out a hole about six inches deep. Each hole got planted with two rhizomes, with the shoot ends pointing upward, and carefully backfilled to avoid breaking off any of the growing shoots. Our single row is divided into four areas, which will eventually be separated by a total of five posts standing about fifteen feet above ground and strung with heavy gauge steel cable to support the weight of fully mature vines. We'll try using trailer winches attached to the end posts as a method for lowering the cables to easily harvest the mature vines. The four different sections were planted individually with Goldings, Hallertau, Tettnang, and Willamette hops provided by Jon Reynolds of the Wisconsin Hops and Barley Cooperative.