As my guys are starting to pop out of the ground, I was wondering who cuts back the first vines and at what height are they if you cut them back.
Thanks
I cut back the initial shoots whenever I get around to it. The shoots are edible … if you want to eat them, I imagine you would want to do that early.
I did formatted years, then found out that it really didn’t make a worthwhile difference. I feel like this is o ne of those things where home practices diverge from commercial practices .
I am planning on it this year because a lot of the early leaves seem to be most susceptible to fungus in late April/early May in our hot and humid climate. The local extension program at UMD had a test farm and they basically mowed over them in the first week of May.
I remember seeing a video of a mega hop grower last year on FB in which they use a burner system to torch the early growth. I’m guessing that it actually makes a difference since a bunch of commercial hop growers do cut back the early growth. I cut my hops down at the end of April.
What I found was that while I makes a difference for commercial growers, for home growers it doesn’t make enough difference to be worth it.
MSU Extension has some nice articles on it:
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/training_hops
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/training_hops_part_2
Bull shoots are normally more hollow and brittle.
Basically, when to train and trim depends on your growing environment. Early shoots tend to be more suspectible to disease. If you do it right, you get your optimum output. Too early is better than too late.
I have Columbus planted. Last frost free day is 4/24 for central IL and Yakima, and we have similar growing degree days (days above a certain temp). I’ll probably prune 5/1, and try and train around memorial day. If you have a few plants, try trimming some and skip the rest. If you see a difference, you’ll have an idea of what to do next year.
All I do is let everything grow until some are probably 18-24 inches, then cut all but the 3-5 most vigorous vines. Not sure if this is considered correct but I get a nice harvest and virtually disease free.some Japanese Beatle damage but that comes too late to matter.
The nodes on the first shoots are further apart. Their purpose is to spread the plant out. The flowers grow from offshoots at the nodes. The nodes on subsequent shoots are closer together therefore producing more flowers.
The first shoots are hollow and therefore weaker. They can bust decreasing opportunity for the plant to produce flowers. The subsequent shoots are not hollow and therefore stronger.
Certain diseases ride the winter out on the root buds that produce the shoots. If you cut the first shoots back you can help reduce those diseases.
I too cut mine back one time usually when they are about a foot tall. Does it really make a whole lot of difference in the homebrewing world, I don’t know. I just do know that the subsequent shoots that come up seem to stronger and have fatter bine stalks than the earlier ones and I always get a lot of flowers on my Cascade.
My Nugget produced like gangbusters for the first five years or so but are now starting to peter out. I was going to dig it out this year, but had a few more flowers last year, so they get one more year to prove me wrong. If I get more flowers this year, maybe I can again make my wet hopped Nugget IPA.
By the end of April, my bines will be 3 or 4 long. As illustrated by the commercial practice of scorching off the early shoots, you should be able to just go in with a weedwhacker and buzz everything down in a second. I don’t think its much trouble.
I’ve seen a few papers saying viruses will be concentrated on the first growth. That is why commercial growers burn those off.