Do gophers eat hops?

[Troutchaser]

So I planted 4 rhizomes in my yard about 3 weeks ago and have been giving them plenty of water but not one shoot has come up. The other day I noticed a couple big gopher hole right next to where I planted them. Do you think they ate the hop roots or is it still early for them to come up?

 

[day_trippr]

No location given, so I'll just guess it's early.
How deep did you plant the rhizomes? If more than an inch, add a few days.

Gophers? No idea. Rabbits and woodchucks/ground hogs don't seem to like them at all though. I've had both nesting right next to the beds, raise kits, and none of them gave two looks at the hops. Deer don't seem interested either, fwiw...

Cheers!

 

[jaacarson]

Growing hops in Las Cruces New Mexico. First year planted cascade and chinook. They were growing great until something clipped my cascade. I had three shoots coming off one rhizome and two shoots coming off the other rhizome. They were at least 8ft. tall. Then something clipped all the Cascade shoots, I suspect a rabbit, they are all over my neighborhood.

My question is, will the rhizomes send up new shoots this year? If not will they survive and produce new shoot next year? Or should I buy new rhizomes?

The chinook are doing great, I bought a wire fence to go around the 5 gallon bucket. It is growing 15 ft or more.

 

[SteveM]

Nothing eats mine and we have every suburban animal there is. Raccoons, deer, squirrels, chipmunks, and more.

One thing, though - I have pretty ideal conditions but still lost two of the four rhizomes I planted, so you could lose one or two just because. Good news is, I still get more than I know what to do with.

 

[kilohertz]

We don't have gophers but we have voles (relative??) smaller version of a mole and they eat anything with roots. Are you sure they are gophers? Seen them pop up? Lost an apple tree and they are definitely in the hop yard and digging under the roots, but my hops are still doing fine.

Good luck!

PS you can buy mole/vole/gopher traps if it's a serious problem.