I have heard this from a number of hop growers on this forum and other documents and other research and for a while have followed this practice...however there really seems to be no reason for this other than harvest timing.
This year after transplanting about 300 plants and trying some new practices we seemed to have eggagerated an effect that I thought may be the reason for the "CUTTING BACK" theory. I say theory because after 7 other farms besides mine did the cutting back thing...we have all gotten the same results - More uniform growth but no discernable increase in yield. If the idea behind cutting the early growth back is to increase yield this simply does not work here in the mid atlantic region.
So I will pose this question - Why cut back the early growth? If the answer is to control harvest timing - I can see this and its undestandable.
If the answer is to increase yield - could you be more specific in the "CUTTING BACK" process. Because so far no one that I have spoken to sees any increase in yield due to simply cutting back the early growth.
Our eggagerated effects are as follows - I set up new beds and transplanted all but a few nuggets to the new beds. Each bed is 15' x 27 ' and hold a max of 45 plants all strung to a central 18' pole in the center - ie a "maypole" design. The beds have been excavated down to 2.5 ft and PH was adjusted and runs 6.7 @ 2.5 ' to 7 @ 6" -PH is consistent throughout the soil profile between those numbers. The beds have been covered with 6 mil Black Plastic and then covered with mulch with holes allowing the plants to come through.
The big effect was that all the growth that came through were shoots directly off the crown...ok so we strung the most vigourous shoots and up the string they went...for a while...we then noticed that new rhizome growth had protruded from the edges of the beds and they looked very strong so we strung those. This has happened across all varieites whether transplanted this year or not. All the shoots we trained that were directly from the crown are by far the weakest and all the growth that had protruded from under the plastic ar by far the strongest. The difference is quite noticeable even to someone that has never seen hops before.
So it would seem that one should only string those shoots that are new rhizome growth and not string any shoots that are directly coming from the crown -hence "cutting back the early growth" as the earliest of growth are shoots coming directly from the crown...after a couple weeks or so the new rhizome growth starts emerging.
I had never noticed this before as this year is our first year using black plastic to help control weeds. So it got me to thinking again about the cutting back method that had been suggested. Its clear now that all the bines directly from the crown are not going to produce well and those that grew under and out of the plastic are going to be massive producers in contrast.
Its also well understood that since most all the plants were transplanted that any growth from the crown (they were transplanted from Feb to May) will be weak as the root system is damaged from the transplanting - hence the eggaerated effect. I would have blamed the effect on the transplanting but for the non transplanted 3rd year nuggets that are doing the same thing and we are getting the same effect - the new rhizome growth seems to be much more vigourous than the shoots directly off the crown.
So I am looking for some clarification as to why some hop farmers cut back the early growth. Is the above the reason?
It would seem that by cutting back the early growth you give the new rhyzome growth time to emerge and be strung vs the early growth from the crown which may in fact be weaker?
Any clarification would be much appreciated.
This year after transplanting about 300 plants and trying some new practices we seemed to have eggagerated an effect that I thought may be the reason for the "CUTTING BACK" theory. I say theory because after 7 other farms besides mine did the cutting back thing...we have all gotten the same results - More uniform growth but no discernable increase in yield. If the idea behind cutting the early growth back is to increase yield this simply does not work here in the mid atlantic region.
So I will pose this question - Why cut back the early growth? If the answer is to control harvest timing - I can see this and its undestandable.
If the answer is to increase yield - could you be more specific in the "CUTTING BACK" process. Because so far no one that I have spoken to sees any increase in yield due to simply cutting back the early growth.
Our eggagerated effects are as follows - I set up new beds and transplanted all but a few nuggets to the new beds. Each bed is 15' x 27 ' and hold a max of 45 plants all strung to a central 18' pole in the center - ie a "maypole" design. The beds have been excavated down to 2.5 ft and PH was adjusted and runs 6.7 @ 2.5 ' to 7 @ 6" -PH is consistent throughout the soil profile between those numbers. The beds have been covered with 6 mil Black Plastic and then covered with mulch with holes allowing the plants to come through.
The big effect was that all the growth that came through were shoots directly off the crown...ok so we strung the most vigourous shoots and up the string they went...for a while...we then noticed that new rhizome growth had protruded from the edges of the beds and they looked very strong so we strung those. This has happened across all varieites whether transplanted this year or not. All the shoots we trained that were directly from the crown are by far the weakest and all the growth that had protruded from under the plastic ar by far the strongest. The difference is quite noticeable even to someone that has never seen hops before.
So it would seem that one should only string those shoots that are new rhizome growth and not string any shoots that are directly coming from the crown -hence "cutting back the early growth" as the earliest of growth are shoots coming directly from the crown...after a couple weeks or so the new rhizome growth starts emerging.
I had never noticed this before as this year is our first year using black plastic to help control weeds. So it got me to thinking again about the cutting back method that had been suggested. Its clear now that all the bines directly from the crown are not going to produce well and those that grew under and out of the plastic are going to be massive producers in contrast.
Its also well understood that since most all the plants were transplanted that any growth from the crown (they were transplanted from Feb to May) will be weak as the root system is damaged from the transplanting - hence the eggaerated effect. I would have blamed the effect on the transplanting but for the non transplanted 3rd year nuggets that are doing the same thing and we are getting the same effect - the new rhizome growth seems to be much more vigourous than the shoots directly off the crown.
So I am looking for some clarification as to why some hop farmers cut back the early growth. Is the above the reason?
It would seem that by cutting back the early growth you give the new rhyzome growth time to emerge and be strung vs the early growth from the crown which may in fact be weaker?
Any clarification would be much appreciated.
