Anyone else have a hop yard?
I've got 4 varieties in my backyard. The one on the left is Amalia, and is on year three. Middle trellis has a year two Vista, and a new Willamette that was planted from a friend's crown. Far right is Multihead.
Looking like I should have a good sized crop this year.
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Is there any concern of cross pollination on the different varieties?
These are female plants. Where you get the polen? You don't - pollinated hops lose bitterness and flavours so there is effort to liquidate all male plants around fields.
This.
I live in NM, so there are wild Neomexicanus hops (the Amalia and Multihead are that variety) but they are all up in the mountains. In the city, there are not really any male plants around.
Only issue is local nurseries sell ornamental hops that might be male... But thankfully my neighbors hopyard is all female varieties for home brewing.
Ahh nice OK. I have about 3 in my yard too and vaguely remeber concerns around cross pollination but the gender part makes sense.
Around here is lots of wild hop plants. Quality of hops go quickly down when male plants are nearby.
But I have few grape vines in garden.
Nice. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of climate do you live in?
Hot and dry lol. They have to be irrigated.
I just started out this spring with a few crowns of Cascade. They're doing fine with minimal irrigation, in spite of a drought. US zone 6B.