Growing hops in Arizona

I couldn’t find anything on growing hops in Arizona. So I’m giving it a try. Bought two large planting pots and filled them with a 50/50 mix of potting soil and mariclegrow potting soil. On 3-18 and hade my rhizomes from hops direct cascade and magnums. After reading for a bit found these to be the most ruged types. Today there is already three shoots coming up. If anyone has tips I’m all ears. But will post on the progress every so often.

Where in AZ.? We have wild hops up here around Flagstaff and the Mogollon Rim, and people here grow them in the backyard, not sure how they would handle the heat in Phx. probably not too well.

They are going to need a lot of water depending exactly where you are in Arizona.
Only allow one or two shoots to grow the first year, this forces the rhizome to spend more effort on the root system.

I beg to differ. Hops are one of the most efficient plants when it comes to turning light energy into a form that can be utilized for growth. When a rhizome first sprouts, it utilizes the energy stored in the rhizome to get going. Once the foliage begins to fly, the amount of carbohydrates it can produce through photosynthesis far outweighs what’s needed to sustain top-growth. “Where do all those excess goodies go”? Right back down into the crown to be stored for future use (next Spring) and that’s why most information on establishing hops suggests to allow everything to grow for the establishment year. Just an observation. Hop On!

I’m in Chandler Az south end. Where the loop 101 and 202 meet. I have them on the east side of my house. Where they will get sun from 10am to around 4pm.

I thought hops liked a cold period over the winter, but it looks like they are growing them in fairly warm parts of Australia with mild winters, so they may do better than I thought they would in the valley. Let me know how they do.

So it has been a little while sense the last post. I now have 3 vines coming up from my cascade rhizomes. And 2 vines coming up from my magnum rhizomes. All vines are about 4ft tall now. I think they would be taller but at first I was watering every other day. But due to the potting soil the water was draining too fast and they were drying out. And I lost two vines. I now water everyday for just a few minutes and they are doing a lot better. I have been thinking about using a fertilizer our something like miracle grow. Any thoughts.

Using miracle grow extremely nitrogen high, fast release, fertilizer will result large leaves but your hops will have lowered alpha acids i think i have also heard it also making the cones smaller too… farmers do use slow release fertilzers at the end of the season after the cones have matured and are almost ready for picking because the cones will have attained their ideal AAU.

check them at least once a day to make sure the soil in the pots hasn’t dried out. Heat, sun and dry air will dry out a pot quicker then you can imagine.

My cascades and tettangers up in Flagstaff are coming up, but it is still getting cold at night, so they are only about 6 inches tall so far.

So it has been almost two months sense I first planted my hops. Today is a big day, there is what I think to be my first few hop cones starting on my magnum bine. The cascade bine does not have any yet. The cone on the magnum is only about 8-10mm in size. I’m thinking this is going to be great. Watering every day is starting to pay off.

I am looking into growing and also live in the AZ Valley.

I would love to hear any of your lessons learned, best time to plant, list of what you needed to start, etc.