Another "what's wrong with my hops" thread.

[Mtblucas]

My third year hops seem to be dying again. These hops are in a large container and grew really well for their first year and a half. Then I moved from Colorado to Utah and within a couple weeks the leaves turned brown and the plant started dying. This year they started growing and were doing great until about a month ago. Just like last summer the leaves are browning on the edges and the bines have stopped all upward growth. I can't figure it out. I've sprayed them several times with Bug-B-Gone and can't see any bugs on them. They are watered regularly. I haven't got a single hop cone off this plant in three years and am getting a little discouraged.

BTW, I did add about 1/2 inch layer of composted manure on them today. Hopefully that helps. Anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

[solidbass]

A potassium deficiency seems to line up with what's happening. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_deficiency_(plants)

 

[Apimyces]

Seems nutrient-based to me. Was the manure added before or after the symptoms?

New leaves look fine. I'd suspect it's a nutrient deficiency for one of the mobile nurtients. I'd reckon magnesium.

 

[BeyondMountains]

I've heard that hops in containers can get "root bound" which can stunt their continued growth. Although the fairly uniform distribution of browning on the leaf edges would be consistent with a nutrient deficiency.

 

[Apimyces]

I'd revise to potassium.

 

[thaymond]

Yep, needs more K, K?

 

[Mtblucas]

Was the manure added before or after the symptoms?

I added the manure the day I posted the thread. The symptoms had been there for quite a while already.

Thanks you all for the info. I'll get some potassium to feed them. Hopefully that'll do the trick!

 

[Senormac]

Go down by the nearest river meadow or semi wet land with a 5 gallon bucket and a spade and find a place where green stuff is growing naturally. Grass, weeds, small shrubs, etc. and get some plain old, natural, time balanced, decomposing by Gods original plan DIRT. Mix this in with whatever you are now using and forget all the man-made ferts, and additives and potsoil.... and it will work for you.

Just sayin.....

It will work

 

[Mtblucas]

Well, I have an update on the hops. Good news and bad news.

First off, I found some fertilizer that had a good amount of both potassium and magnesium. It is actually labeled as rose fertilizer but it seemed to be what I needed so I gave it a try.

The bad news is that the brown leaves were already too far gone and I had to cut all of them down.

The good news is that new shoots started emerging and are growing vigorously. All the new stuff looks very healthy. Although my hops are sorta starting over at square one I'm glad to see I should hopefully have some amount of hops come fall. Thanks for the suggestions!

Btw, in the second pic some of the leaves are still a little oddly shaped but I think those grew when the plant first started growing again. This pic is about a week old and all the new leaves are shaped like real hop leaves. It took a couple weeks for the plant to really get growing after the fertilizer was added.