Growing Saaz

I have a northern brewer, fuggle, and cascade hop plant and recently ordered a Saaz hop rhizome. Comparatively are Saaz really that much harder to grow?
Best,

[quote=“brew2000”]I have a northern brewer, fuggle, and cascade hop plant and recently ordered a Saaz hop rhizome. Comparatively are Saaz really that much harder to grow?
Best,[/quote]

I’ve never grown them, but have read that they don’t like growing in the U S a lot. Sterling is a good sub.

I’ve read that they will produce a low yield and are susceptible to a list of problems. I’ve also heard they don’t even grow that well in the Czech Republic. Any-who I was hoping to hear that this is a misconception because they are my favorite aroma hop.
Best,

It’s not that they’re hard to grow, they just don’t produce. Saaz is an old ‘land race’ along with others like Tettnang and Hersbrucker that seem to have lost some of their vigor over the ages. I had the opportunity to take a tour the hop research center in Corvallis, OR. many years ago. When we got to a block of Saaz clones I noticed that they were only about 10-12 feet tall while all the other varieties were at the wire. I asked the breeder if they were ‘baby’ plants and he told me that they were well established but that they didn’t grow well, even in their homeland. This is the reason new varieties like Sterling are being bred to help give the farmers more of a return on their investment. Kind of a sad story but that’s how things work.