ianmurchison
Member
I wanted to share with everyone my plans for our hop field. We have a 19ac property and I think in the end we will be able to squeeze about 12ac with actual hops.
Doing things pretty small the first year so that we can better understand what kind of things to expect with regards to water, soil conditions, growth, pests, etc.
The plan is to do 3 inner rows of the trellis blocks so that was can easily add on to the block in year 2.
These 3 rows will be about 220 plants total. This will be broken up with 160 Cascade and 60 Galena, we'll be double planting rhizomes so about 440 plants total being planted.
We will also have a small 16 plant block of Centennial for fun.
We should be getting delivery of the first posts early spring. Planning to set them at 19-20' above ground.
Next is planning how to get up to that height! Likely going to pickup a trailer and build some scaffolding on it. Towed with a lawn tractor for now.
At the end of Year 1, the plan is to install a full 2-3ac of trellis system.
1ac of Cascade, 1ac of Galena and potentially 1ac of Centennial or something else through some material agreements we're looking at.
This sort of hinges on how the year 1 stuff goes. I need to better understand how I can manage those 3ac without any real onsite facilities. We currently don't live on the property and while there is a building onsite, it doesn't have any power source.
We're also working on a scalable drying system that'll help up grow. Aiming to have a system packed with sensors to help automate and control as much as we can.
Anyways, here's glimpse and some pipe dream renderings.
Doing things pretty small the first year so that we can better understand what kind of things to expect with regards to water, soil conditions, growth, pests, etc.
The plan is to do 3 inner rows of the trellis blocks so that was can easily add on to the block in year 2.
These 3 rows will be about 220 plants total. This will be broken up with 160 Cascade and 60 Galena, we'll be double planting rhizomes so about 440 plants total being planted.
We will also have a small 16 plant block of Centennial for fun.
We should be getting delivery of the first posts early spring. Planning to set them at 19-20' above ground.
Next is planning how to get up to that height! Likely going to pickup a trailer and build some scaffolding on it. Towed with a lawn tractor for now.
At the end of Year 1, the plan is to install a full 2-3ac of trellis system.
1ac of Cascade, 1ac of Galena and potentially 1ac of Centennial or something else through some material agreements we're looking at.
This sort of hinges on how the year 1 stuff goes. I need to better understand how I can manage those 3ac without any real onsite facilities. We currently don't live on the property and while there is a building onsite, it doesn't have any power source.
We're also working on a scalable drying system that'll help up grow. Aiming to have a system packed with sensors to help automate and control as much as we can.
Anyways, here's glimpse and some pipe dream renderings.