Gridlocked

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Hey everyone,

I'm a first year hops grower and my plants are doing really well. Three of my five plants have very mature cones that will most likely be ready in a few weeks. I went out to inspect them over the weekend and noticed that along with the mature cones are sending out side-shoots and those are starting to produce burs. Some of these side shoots were trimmed back to the main vine a few weeks ago. My question is: do I let these side shoots produce cones, or do I trim them off so the ones that I have now mature faster?

Thanks,

conpewter

Recipes 

I don't trim the plants after I have them on the twine, I let the side shoots come out. Then when it is ready for harvest I just harvest the mature cones, then let the others mature, if I get a second harvest great.

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Gridlocked

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Copy that, Thanks conpewter!
I will be making multiple harvests as some of the cones are up to three weeks older than others, so I'll let the Gen"x" spurs go.

Homercidal

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For the first year I would not trim anything. Actually, my third year cascades got minimal trimming. Just near the bottom when they were crawling all over the place. I was pretty much just to busy/lazy to do anything with them.

Anyway, if'n I was you I'd harvest by hand and let the plant continue to collect sun and make roots grow. My 2nd and 3rd year plants got cut when I harvested. They were just too massive and loaded to make me want to pick them off the vine. I ended up cutting them into 3rds, each.

All of them grew to together at the top of the 16ft. pole, so there was a massive clump of hops. Some of them got little sun and were very light in color and smallish in size. Not sure if this is due to the 3 plants growing together or not, but next year I will be either putting up a pole for each plant, to affixing arms to the top of this pole and separating the bines a bit more.

cuinrearview

Recipes 

Around this time of year I pick the first harvest and let the new growth and cones mature and die. The cascades that I picked tonight had burrs way up in the plant but by the time they mature here it'll be so cold at night that I can't imagine they'll be of any use, especially with the small amount produced.

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