Bury side vine???
 

I read somewhere that you can bury a lateral vine and it will turn into a rhizome... any truth to this? I planted my first year hops this year and they are looking great so I'd like to have a few more to plant next spring.

I did this earlier this year. So far they just turned into thin roots, most of them I killed by accidentally uprooting them while weeding. Oh well. It maybe better to wait till the third year or so, when the roots are starting to spread and divide into separate rhizomes by themselves.

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I have red this as well, and it will probably work, butttt......

This is my first year with hops but strawberries do something similar. I would want the plans to get established fist before thinking of propagation. If you want more plants you can always buy more rhizomes and they would have a head start form the side shoot.

link

rhizomes will form off the main root ball. You will have more than you know what to do with after a couple of years. Setting sidearms or primary bines into the ground does not mean they necessarily will form rhizomes. As is noted, they form little rootlets off the buried section, but that does not constitute a rhizome fit for propagation.

I tried that last year with my first year hops. Some started climbing the twine, but they didn't produce. This year, they didn't come back. I do, however, have "runners" trying to get out of the border I built around them. If you wait a couple years or three, you'll have more hop plants than you need.

I've also read that if you put the cuttings in a bucket of water, they will grow roots. I don't know if they'll become viable plants, but it wouldn't hurt to try. I had so many bines this year that I gave up trying to trim them all back.

Source: Using Hops, The Complete Guide To Hops For The Craft Brewer by Mark Garetz, page 20...

"The rhizome of the hop plant is an underground stem that stays in the ground from year-to-year and is the real perennial part of the plant. From the rhizome the roots grow downwards and hop shoots will sprout in the spring. Each one of these shoots can become a bine."

I have read that cuttings will grow roots and then rhizomes. In the book "Homegrown Hops" by David R. Beach, he says that he has stated new plants from cuttings. I sure hope it works, I have a bunch going strong and looking forward to next year.
Check out this thread. Especially pay attention to the last post.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/planting-cuttings-181728/

Ok, that makes sense, but will cutting a shoot and sticking it in water until it produces roots be enough to produce a rhizome? I haven't tried that yet, but with the amount of shoots I got this year, I'm sure I'll have plenty to try with next year.

See previous post.

I ordered some hop plants from Richters herbs and I am sure that is the way they do their stuff. They ship out live plants in small pots, maybe 2x2x2 pots. When you take them out, there is really no rhizome "stick", just a root ball. I have 6 varieties from the regular rhizome cutting, and another 4 from the living plant method, and all are growing, but the rhizome ones are farther ahead by probably a month. The living plant ones are all growing now, but I have 2 that just broke ground this week.
So if you are going to try this, give it LOTS and LOTS of time, and don't expect much to happen. I was actually shocked to see the last two come up, they have been under ground for probably close to 6 weeks.