Why are my 2nd year hops growing burrs already?

My 2nd year cascade and chinook are growing burrs already isnt it a bit early

I not only have burrs on my Centennial, Chinook and Cascade, the Chinook has cones. And that's definitely earlier than their first year, but then we had a remarkably temperate winter and spring and up until the last few days we were running a good 10°F warmer average temperature then normal for this region...

Cheers!

Thanks for the quik reply. my cascade have a few burrs on them and no side arms, but my chinook on the other hand is loaded with burrs and is growing side arms. One of my bines looks like it even max out at about 10ft and looks like a burr is grow at the eye of the bine. it must be due to this crazy weather we've been having this year ....cheers!

I've got the same situation on a Nugget hop plant that is a 2nd year plant. It's reached the full height of my 12' trellis design already, and it's bushing out at the top. It's got little BB sized hop flowers now, but hundreds of them. AND I just planted 5 Cascade rhizomes this spring, and TWO of them are already at the full 12' height and have hop flowers on them already. First freaking year, only 2 months in the ground. These are amazing crops...

Good luck on your nugget and cascade hops. I guess early is better than no crop at all

This is my 3rd year and they already have full sized cones on them. the first two years I got little harvests every couple weeks until the big harvest in late september. I guess it just a matter of being in the warm south.

The difference between the first and second year can be amazing. When you plant a rhizome, it's got nothin', no roots no shoots no nothin'. Generally it's main focus is to send some roots out to be able to fend for itself. The shoots that come up will aid in providing energy to sustain their own growth with any excess energy produced being sent back to be stored in the crown. Very busy time in it's young life. If it does well enough for itself it may throw some cones that first year and coming into year two it's already developed some good roots and now has an excess of energy stored up and is ready to blast-off once things warm up in the Spring. Sometimes the early shoots blast-off way too early and produce some uncharacteristic growth that may or may not be burned off by a freeze or hard frost (many folks remove the first growth for that reason). If you have an unseasonably warm late Winter/ early Spring, the clock is moved forward and you may have very early cones. I don't know if the quality is any better or worse than those harvested during the 'normal' timeframe but I'd say to just roll with it. Happy Growing!