Hops.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1818, 1 March 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Hops.

BY MR. A. W. JIOWITT.

In Maclvor's Farmer* Annual. Tun cultivation o£ hops in different parts of Australasia has made rapid progress within the last few years, and in time Britain may look to us to supply her with large quantities of our produce. The importation of hops into New Zealand has ceased, owing to the local production being equal to the demand. In Victoria there aie many localities where the hop will be found to grow luxuriantly, but the extensive cultivation of the plant is conhned to the Bairnsdale district, in (iippsland. The production in the colony in 1881 82 amounted to l^l.OiO lbs., and tho total area of the gardens exceeded 503 acres.

SKLLCTION Oi TUB GROUND. " It is difficult to imagine that the hop could thiivc anywhere raoie luxuriantly than in the lich, moist, alluvial .soil which borders theltiver Mitchell, and some of the richest of the soil is found between the Mitchell Biver and its blanches, locally known as the Backwater. It was here, end in part of the Baunsdale pre-emptive right that the first Bairnsdale hop plantations were established as an experiment ; but I must note that Mr. Chailes Barton, of Lake Wellington, was the pioneer hop -grower of Gippsland. The interval between the Mitchell Ki\ex and the Backwater is liable to morq, or less complete inundation, whenever the liver in raised by rains or the melting ot snow. I have not, however, found that the hop plants have suffsred from this, unless wheie there has been current which has swept the soil fioni them, as where the su if ace of the giound has been bo low that the Hood waters have lemained on the plants moie than a very few days. I think thac even a chiterence of level of less than 2 ft. would deteimine whether hops would or would not duller m |ury. In selecting ground for a plantation it is theiefoie necessary to considei whether ilood3 are likely to spread over, and remain for any time upon il-,;i 1 -, ; it is also most necessary that hops should be exposed as little as possible to high winds, such as blow in Gippsland from the west and south-west. I ha\e found that such winds have a most injuiious action in bruising tne bines against each other or against the poles when giowing, or by breaking down the poles bodily when the hops have thrown out laterals and are full of bloom. The Mitchell valley is much sheltered, biit even there it i 3 most advisable to create shelter by planting quickgiowing hedges and bieak-winds.

PKEI'ABINfi Till: ORObND. " Assuming the land to have been .selected and cleared, and the roots followed for a depth of at least 20in., it must then be well broken up to as gieat a depth as possible. It ought to be subsoiled, and I have found that a very good condition may be obtained by two ploughs following each other in the same unow. The giound is then carefully harrowed down and 1 oiled.

PIANXIW, TIIK GROUND. " The ground having been got ready, and the direction of the lows having been determined upon, the next step is to mark out wheie each hop plant or crown-set is to be placed. This must be earned out with sciupulous exactitude, so that whichever way the lows aie looked at the plants will be line in line. No plant must stand out of the row, for otherwise it would be liable dining cultivation to have its bines seiiously injured by the nidget or other horse instrument used in tilling the ground. The best distance at which the hops plants should stand I ha\e found to be 7ft. ench way. If the distance is less than this— say Oft — I have found that the hops become entangled at the tops, and foim a shade -which pie\enls the sunlight reaching the lower laterals. In maiking out the ground I have used a bimeyoi's chain accuiately maiked al such distances as it is intended to plant the hops. The chain being placed along the dnection in which it is intended the iov/s shall run, the two men using it walk towauls each other, each having with him a bundle of ' marks ' of suitable length, one of which he places in the ground at each of the places marked off in the chain. Peihaps the most convenient marks that can be used aie pieces of reed about lKin, or 2ft. in length. They can be obtained leadily in almost all places wheie hops are being planted. The marks being placed in the ground, the chain is now&hifted, and the process repeated until the whole ground is maiked oft. If the process is earned out with care, and the rows of 'marks' examined and found to be legular in every dhection, the ground may be conB'dered as ready for planting. Where bedded 8 3 ts are used, each one must of course be carefully planted out, so that its ' crown ' is as exactly as possible in the position occupied by the mark, which it is well to replace so as to indicate theiows until the plants areabo\c ground. Where 'crown-sets' are used, they may be dibbled in so that the two ' eyes ' which mu3t be lefL, are about a couple of inches below the surface. When crown-sets arc used, not much may be expected from them the first season, as they will have quite enough to do to establish themselves, yet I ha\e found it decidedly advisable to place some kind of pole for them to climb ; it is then easier to keep thegiound clean, any any little crop theie is helps to pay expenses. The hops will be all the better next year for being attended to than by being allowed, as I have seen, to iun wild. As the hop is a dioecious plant, that is, has the male flowers on one plant, and the f> male flower on another, it is necessary to plant out some ' male hops' in one ground, and in doing so attention bhould be paid to the quarter fiom which the prevalent wind comes, and to plant the ' male hops ' on that side of the ground. The hops cultivated at Bairnsdale are two principal varities — one early, and the other late. These aie known locally by various names, but I cannot say with certainty what their true designates are. The bulk of the crop is from a hop which is probably the late or Flemish giape hop. The two crops become ready for picking at an interval of about three weeks apart. The great desideratum now is to find some hop which will come in between the two.

PKOCKSS Or CULTIVATION. "In foimer years it was usual to prune the hops at the commencement of August, but I observe that the practice now seems to be to delay it till about the middle of the month. I3ut before piuning — indeed, the earlier the better — the ground should be carefully turned up with a one-horse plough, gathering the funows to the centre of the row and leaving just so much unploughed as will contain the plants uninjured. It the ploughing has been done eaily it may be cross-ploughed ; if not long before pruning it may be well to prune first and then cross-plough, afterwards harrowing with a small harrow and breaking down with the horse ' nidget.' The pruning operations, or rather the turning over of the ground surrounding the plants where they are pruned, aie all restricted to the small square left unworked. The soil is carefully removed from the plant with a blunt or roundedged hoe, so that the crown of the plant and the lateral runners are laid bare without injuring the plant. The crown is pruned close, and the lateral roots cut off and removed, and the soil carefully returned and piled up over the plant. Where manure is used other than farmyard, or other dung of such a kind that requires to be ploughed or filled in— it may be applied most advantageously by spreading it round the hop plant where the soil has been forked away, and by being mixed with the soil returned to the plant after pruning is completed. I have always regarded the question of manure as one of very great importance to the hopgrower. It was soon after first planting my hopground at Bairnsdale that I commenced to experiment on the effect produced by applying manure. I soon satisfied myself, that even in the rich land of the Mitchell Backwater, its application was highly advantageous. After manuring for two years I discontinued for one season, with the result of a crop less in amount than that gathered the previous season. Jlopgrowers have in Gipps-

land mainly to rely on artificial manures. In England, farmyard manure, fish, and old woollen materials have been largely used, the latter being, it is said, most valuable in supplying to the hop the constituents which it especially requires. In some places the hop binea are subjected to various processes — oven, I believe, passed through chaff-cutters — to reduce them to such fragments as can be readily dug or easily buried in the ground. But these plans are now followed in Gippaland so far as I am aware. The principal point \shich I have endeavored to aim at has been to supply the hop with those constituents which it especially requires to abstract from the soil. Among these phosphoric acid and lime form a large percentage. In my experience, perhaps the best way of supplying these constituents is by mixing fine ground bonedust, or, better still, supeiphosphate of lime when it can be found in a reliable form, with the soil that has been removed during the process of pmning. The hop by this means is amply supplied with plant food from the lust commencement of its yeai's growth. In addition to this, I find it advantageous to apply a dressing of Peruvian guano at the time when the plants are 'hilled up.' The young bines have by that time good hold of the poles, and the guano gives them increased vigorous and healthy growth. These two classes of artificial manures supply those mineral constituents which the hop especially requires to take up in a soluble form from the soil. In order to keep the ground in good o) der, and free from weeds, the ' nidget ' is kept going constantly. Continual stirring of the ground, a liberal use of manure, and constant irrigation from the time at latest when the lateial bines show, I regard as essential to success in hopgrowing. The next pioeeeding is to plant the pole 3 in the ground, aud my mle has been to place them one inch deep for every foot of their lengths. Where three poles are used, they should be placed so as to form a triangle, having the hop plant in the centre, but not so near to it as to injure its roots. The poles should be so placed as to obstruct little of the sunlight from those behind, and they should spread a little outwards. If it were possible to look down upon a hop ground newly poled, the tops of the poles should be as nearly as possible equi-distant from each other all over it. The poles now used are almost all ti-tree, cut on the margin of the Gippsland lakes and their backwaters. I have used stringybark poles peeled, and wattle, but on the whole the most satisfactory are the ti-tree.^Ss^The extraordinary demand for poles for hopgrounds threatens in a few years to make their cost a most serious item. For present cost I refer to the estimate at the end of this paper. When the poles are planted in the piound the next process will be to tie up the young bines, which by that time may be about ready. There is, however, not immediate need of doing this, if only the first strong pipey shoots have appeared, which must be lejecfced, producing more leaves and rank growth than hop blooms. Two bines of the proper kind should be carefully tiained round each pole, and it will be necessary from time to time to go over the ground in order to help the weak ones to get a hold and to replace those ties which have come loose. I observe that a practice obtains of stripping the buds from the lower parts of the snoots tied up so as to prevent the growth of runners, which would require to be cut off. Fiorn this time forward the principal point should be to keep the ground well worked and free from weeds, and, where it is possible, to irrigate, unless the season is exceptionally moist. I am inclined to think that it might be said with truth that the number of the hop-blooms depends upon manuring, and their individual size upon iirigation. In t !i e Bairnsdale district irrigation has been effected by pumping and by laising water by 'lifters.' The water is then conducted in main ditches as required to the various parts of the ground, and thence distiibuted in small furrows drawn between the rows. The amount of water allowed to run at one time must be carefully regulated or injury may be done to the hops. It may be taken as a geneial rule that hops will be ready for picking about six weeks after the bloom — or as it is technically called the ' burr' appears, and this is a ciitical time, for much now depends on the favorable or unfovorable weather, or iriigation, high winds, &c, as to the individual sue of each hop-bloom, whether the hops fill out well or ill, or have much or little 1 condition.' " (Concluded in our nevt.)