Welcome 2017

Winter has come and gone without leaving nearly as much devastation as the previous one. Our fig trees have recently started leafing out and setting new fruit without the need for excessive pruning. Last year everything above ground died. I'm hoping this bodes well for this year's hop harvest, last year's was disappointing.

After seeing no signs of the Willamette last year I have completely given up on seeing it again. The Columbus and Cascade both produced shoots once the cold started to break. I let them get a little wild before stepping in to tame them:

Time for some pruning and the bamboo poles and twine arranged in a helix:

This year I've decided to have the helices grow up in opposite directions in an extension of previous experiments in handedness.

When pruning I took extra care to eliminate bulls shoots in case they were a contributing factor to last year's poor harvest. Difficult to say with the combination of hard winter, brutal summer, and not cutting back the bull shoots. Time and the summer weather will tell.

String theory

The slightly cooler weather and rain have meant that I haven't had to give my hops much in way of attention in terms of watering or similar. As a consequence the Willamette and Cascade are getting close to the shepherd's hook they have been strung up to:

To head them off I have put up what should be the rest of the twine. I will be very impressed if more is needed:

This is looking from behind the hooks towards the poles on the other side of the garden. I have intentionally crossed a couple of the lines with a mind to maximising the potential for creating shade. It's quite possible I will have to be careful to make sure that they continue to grow straight along the twine they start on, otherwise it's likely going to be easy to get confused as to which is which. I have also arranged one line to be above the other that it is crossing. As you may or may not be able to tell, there has been some sagging of the first line I put up (on the far left) so I don't know if this will solve the problem.

The sharp-eyed amongst you will notice that the pole on the right does not have the handy metal spikes that I used to attach the twine to on the other pole. What I've done is a bit of a bodge but will hopefully keep the twine in place for the rest of the summer:
 

What I've done is use heavy duty staples. I've also folded the twine back on itself several times and stapled it each time. I reasonably certain it will hold the hops, not sure what will happen if the birds decide it looks like a nice perch. Hopefully the twine is too thin for them to entertain that particular idea.

The Columbus is still looking very bushy and healthy:

Something of a contrast to the Willamette and Cascade which are looking a little thin in comparison. This is reflected both in the total height of growth but also the number of secondary shoots that have appeared to thicken it out.

With regard to whether growing in a left or right handed helix has any discernible effect, here's the evidence so far:

 

The shoot furthest to the right is growing in a right handed helix, the one behind it in a left handed helix and the one behind that in a right handed helix. I certainly have not been able to tell any difference in them. They all seem very happy to be just getting on with growing. Perhaps they have an intrinsic preference but aren't really all that fussy about it. Pragmatists of the plant world, or weeds as some might call them. Hard to tell really.

Twist and crop

I've given the Columbus several days to start to look as if it was going to wrap around the twine I've set up crossing the garden. Days may not sound like a long time for most plants but then for hops that's several inches growth. Here's what the Columbus looked like this morning:

As you should be able to see, it's making no real effort to wind around the twine. I guess I could leave it to flail around for longer but it would probably end up finding the maple behind rather than the path laid out for it.

You'll also be able to see that there is a second shoot coming up behind it. I've decided, being a scientist at heart, that I'm going to conduct a small experiment. According to this source, hops grow with an intrinsic handedness. As I'm going to have to wind them around the twine myself, I may as well see if I can perceive any difference between shoots from the same plant growing in either a left or right handed helix:

The source above claims that hops are intrinsically left handed. In the pic above the furthest along shoot has been wound in a right handed helix, while the one behind it is in a left handed helix (I think). You can check for yourself here. We'll see over time if there is any perceptible difference between hops forced to grow against their better instincts.

This all reminds me of this article, talking (a little pedantically if you ask me) about popular depictions of DNA using the wrong handed helix. The picture they chose to use is of course not a great representation of DNA either though. I'll leave it to the molecular biologists amongst you to decide what's wrong with that picture. I guess this is just an example of the curse of the pedantically inclined (one I have fallen foul of on plenty of occasions): you can look a little foolish if you don't get everything right if you're going to point out how others have got it wrong. It's very possible though that the author was not responsible for choosing the image.

Just to be thorough, here's where the Willamette and Cascade are in comparison, growing in what I think are the as-advertised left-handed helices:

The Cascade is the nearer one and looking as if it too will need to be trained across the garden soon. They are both looking a little thin in comparison to the Columbus though. It's hard to tell at this point whether this is normal growth and the Columbus is just exceptional or if these two are struggling.