My Hop Trellis Design

This is the second year growing hops and I put up this trellis last year. I have one of each cascade, centennial, nugget, and magnum. The design is just two 16ft 4x4s with concreted 3ft in the ground a couple eyebolts and a couple cleats. The main rope runs across the top and the stringers attach to it. Easy to raise and lower for harvest. I don't have a pic of the top line being pulled tight with the stringers but I run 2 stringers up from each plant.

Let me know what you think.

-Cheers

Any suggestions on how many bines to run from each plant. I ran two up each string last year for a total of 4 per plant.

4 per plant is the ideal number in my opinion

Jrod said:

Any suggestions on how many bines to run from each plant. I ran two up each string last year for a total of 4 per plant.

Click to expand...

I usually do 3-4 per string and then break the growth tip on 1 or 2 of the weaker ones once they have reached head high or so (if weather, birds, or my clumbsiness hasn't already done the pruning for me)

BTW, the trellis looks nice and simple. If you are worried about the weight pulling the posts towards each other (I would be worried, but not 100% certain it will happen, as I had a couple 4x4 actually bend/warp even thought the base was solid), you can screw a 36" earth anchor into the ground 10 feet from each end post and attach a 1/4" or 3/8" galvanazined wire rope to an eye bolt about 3/4 of the way up each post. You'll still be able to raise and lower the main line.

BTW, what are you using for the top line?

You should definitely run the top line through the eyebolts and then to an anchor on the ground about 8 feet away from the poles. That will keep the top line as tight as possible and also allow you to lower it for partial harvesting.

I finally got some better pictures of my trellis design to give you a frame of reference:

Earth Anchors attached to turnbuckles and guy wires.



Tilt-a-whirl 4x4 extension off my 6x6 posts. You can see the warping in the 4x4 from when I had the guy wires attached to the eyelet on the primary pole and didn't have anything to counter-act the forces from the top line attached at the top of the 4x4



To let the top line down, I loosen the guy wire and then punch out the bottom bold holding the 4x4 to the 6x6 post. Once this is done on both ends of the run, I can tilt it down and the line stands about 7-8 feet from the ground at that point. This makes setting up for the next year a breeze. For harvest, I cut down the whole bine, so I don't worry about tilting it up and down with the weight of the hops attached (although that might be doable with a smaller number of hops, I suppose)

It's just a nylon rope that runs across the top. It is run through the eyebolts and down to a cleat on each side where it is tied off. I can lower either or both sides for harvesting. I'm going to keep an eye on the posts this year and see how it goes. If they start to bow too much I'll anchor them next season.