Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

Picked a little bit more and wieghed what I picked today and it was a around 23 ounces wet. Depending on how the rest of the harvest does this year I asume I will have somewhere around 50 to 60 ounces wet this year if everything blossoms well.

I will need to start harvesting soon, too. I've got a bunch of buds that are 1" - 2" long. It's going to be another blow out year and I've still got over 1 lb of dried in the freezer from last year!!

I have the Randal available for festivals if anyone wants to use it.

I'm thinking that would be an excellent way to use up some of last year's crop!

I just read a flyer from Iowa State Extension about Jap Beetles. They have found that the traps definately catch about one third of the beetles they attract. Multiple traps are more effective but must be placed at least 50 ft from plants or landscape you wish to protect. Lawn treatment for the grubs (milky spore) does kill the grubs "In YOUR Lawn" but the beetles are strong fliers.
Evidently these two methods would be effective if Everybody were using them. Sevin dust works well but must be reapplied every third day and makes the plant look bad. (White dust) A hose end sprayer with a persistant insecticide is most effective but also is hard on bees and some birds that eat the other dead insects.
Tough choices.

A friend of mine grows hops and when I asked if his hops were ravaged by beetles he said that his hop crop has a lot of grape vines growing near it. He said the beetles favor the grape vines far more than the hops, so they leave them mostly alone. I know that won't help most people, but its interesting. The beetles will obviously favor some plants over others, and only resort to type B when type A is mostly depleted. Same thing happened to my birch tree in my yard. They only started on that after they demolished another tree of mine.

Yep, for the most part they left my hops alone, preferring instead the strawberries and peach tree.

I just got a box of milky spores and hope to apply it this weekend. It claims to be effective for 10 years!

We had pretty widespread grub damage to our lawn 3 Summers ago. The following Fall and Spring, we applied Milky Spore and haven't had a problem since. We take regular core samples and rarely find grubs anymore. I wouldn't say the number of Japanese Beetles has gone down, though, as none of my neighbors have done the same thing.

The sack of milky spore pellets I got at Culver's needs to be applied 4 times a year for two seasons (8 applications). Does the powder require less repeat application?
I wonder if they become a plague (sp?) if they city would do anything? The traps work you just need them evenly spaced throughout the area.

I finally got to harvesting (some) of my hops this past weekend. Work got real busy after one of our people left for another position a month ago and I just haven't had a chance to pick them. I picked 3.5 pounds of Cascade on Saturday, got tired of picking, and probably have another 3 pounds left on that plant. I didn't even get to my Mt. Hood plant, it probably has 3-4 pounds on it as well.

The Cascade I picked are drying now and I hope to get a chance in the next couple weeks to brew and use these as a late addition, probably @ 15 minutes before flame out and at flame out to add some nice aroma. Hmmm, a SN Pale ale clone would be nice.

david