Welcome back everyone to the Epic Gardening Podcast.

We are back with Bob Bromley.

He's the hops technician at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company up in Chico, California.

We talked yesterday about how to plant hops, just some of the basics to keep in mind even

some trellising options, but with such a long season crop and a long lifespan crop

where you're investing multiple years before you get something decent as far as a hop

harvest bow, I'm thinking you really want to be on top of your pest and disease issues

because if you put it in two years and then maybe years three you're hoping to get a

little hop harvest, but if pest or disease comes through and decimates it then you're

going to be really sad.

So what should we be watching out for?

Well, I have some good news for starters is that we had talked in an earlier episode

that although hops are a perennial, the above ground part is an annual.

So you kind of get a fresh start every year with that and as opposed to let's say you put

a cherry tree in the ground, it dies back so you can cut it back every year when it goes

dormant and start over so that's a good thing to start with.

Speaking of that though, then are there any pests or diseases that would attack under

the ground and potentially ruin the actual root of it?

The biggest concern with hops is the fungal disease, two of them, powdery mildew and

downy mildew.

And those are found mainly up in the Pacific Northwest where they get a lot of rain,

a lot of moisture in the air, so it's quite a big problem up there.

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