New Hop Trellis (in action!!!)

Well, the hops are shooting up and I figured it was time to re-build the trellis. This year's model is a re-design of last year's with a little extra height added. Last year was the first year and all three plants maxed out my 14 ft lines. This year is probably too short again, but oh well. Here it is:



The poles are retractable to help with harvesting

I still need to tie the lines down, but you get the idea...

Nice, you should post some information around your harvest so those of us interested in attempting to grow our own at some point have an idea of where to start.

Ahhh...PVC, makes the perfect trellis. Looks great!

very nice, that'll work great

how many rhizomes do you have planted with that trellis?

steinsato said:

how many rhizomes do you have planted with that trellis?

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I planted 2x Cascade and 2x Centennial - each has its own line to climb. The same varietals are planted 3 feet away from each other and the different varietals are planted six feet away from each other. Unfortunately, one of the centennial was a dud. I was trying to decide if I would replant this year or not. So far (and it may be too late), I'm sticking with the three survivors. Last year (in their first year), they yielded 2 oz of dry hops - not bad I guess for newbies to my yard.

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but this thing hasn't broke in a hard wind? For the record, I don't want it to break, but I could see a hard wind taking half of it away.

Retrofit said:

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but this thing hasn't broke in a hard wind? For the record, I don't want it to break, but I could see a hard wind taking half of it away.

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I used the same design last year with smaller diameter pipe and had no problems other than a little leaning. This year, each tier averages about 1" thicker than last year. Also, my yard is surrounded on three sides by leyland cyprus about 20 feet tall.

The plus size of this design is all the homebrew induced field goal competitions you can have!

Randar said:

The plus size of this design is all the homebrew induced field goal competitions you can have!

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I was thinking the same thing!

Randar said:

The plus size of this design is all the homebrew induced field goal competitions you can have!

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Yeah, my f-i-l was giving me sh!+ about it the other day.

Hey, I've got a two year old son and another boy coming in three weeks - they're going to need a practice goal, right?

Randar said:

The plus size of this design is all the homebrew induced field goal competitions you can have!

Click to expand...

good way to get your kids into rugby!

I did a similar thing last year. I used 2" galvanized pipe, and cut a 4' cement footing tube in half, and set a PVC tube that the pipe fits into perfectly. The only problem I had was once they reached the 20' level, the whole thing acted like a sail. When it got real windy from the east, it actually tipped over. I was lucky that nothing got damaged.

https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=39139&cat=all&ppuser=16127

zuesy said:

Ahhh...PVC, makes the perfect trellis. Looks great!

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Really? Mine didn't work for crap - too flexible. I made "Tees" and they bowed under the weight of the bines.

I used 1 1/2.

TwoWheeler said:

Really? Mine didn't work for crap - too flexible. I made "Tees" and they bowed under the weight of the bines.

I used 1 1/2.

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Bigger diameter is gonna be more rigid at any given wall thickness.

I used a pressure treated 4x4 for mine.

Cellular cored PVC pipe is designed to carry liquids. It's water pipe not structural tubing. I'm sure the IP's trellis worked because of the lines coming down diagonally give it support just like the guy wires on a tall radio/TV tower. PVC withstands the sun very well, does not need painting, is easy to cut and join and can be bought at any home center so it's pretty handy stuff. It's just not very strong compared to other materials like wood, steel or aluminum. If you can work with it's weakness it has a lot of strengths.