Limiting the Height of my Hops

I just transplanted my hops to a new location this year to get better sun. I don't have a whole lot of room in the new location and I was wondering what would happen if I topped my hops daily to control their vertical growth. Would the plant produce the same amount of hops, just not as spread out? Would it just grow out to the side like crazy? What do you think?

pretty sure you would get less hops, I don't get many cones below 5 feet or so

During the vegetative growth period, the growing tip of the vine leads the way up the string. If this tip is eliminated some how (broken, pinched off, whatever) what usually happens is that two more growing tips begin to take over for the previous leader. These will begin to form at the first leaf junction below where the break occurred. Now you have two central leaders instead of one and both will most likely put out as many sidearms (appendages where the hops form) as that single vine would have. You may not notice too much decline in production if this is the case, but if you were to pinch the tips of the secondary shoots you'd then have 4 coming from the original one. I would imagine if you continued to repeat this process over and over you may see a reduction in yield. Never done it, just thinkin'!

You'll be fine. Hops don't grow up string in the wild.

I get plenty of extra hops from my friend who just lets his grow as ground cover.

itsme6582 said:

You'll be fine. Hops don't grow up string in the wild.

I get plenty of extra hops from my friend who just lets his grow as ground cover.

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Not a string - sure - but, they do tend to grow up whatever natural structure is near them: trees, rocks, etc...

A friend and I had this very same argument. To test it out he removed his structure for the season and let them grow on the ground. Same variety. Less than a mile apart.

My plant produced just under 2lbs. dried cones.
His? Less than 4oz.

The big difference seemed to be that without a structure, the hops just mounded up. only the top of the mound received enough light to produce cones. The entire plant was also much more susceptible to insects.

It should be interesting to watch them this year. I love checking up on them every day. I planted them in front of my business, which is an office building with an arbor near the front door. I figured why have climbing roses? Hops smell way better. I plan to hag a sign on the hop plants letting my customers know what they are and have a little more information inside. I think it will be a good conversation starter and a chance to connect with my customres on a non-business level.

cshann19 said:

It should be interesting to watch them this year. I love checking up on them every day. I planted them in front of my business, which is an office building with an arbor near the front door. I figured why have climbing roses? Hops smell way better. I plan to hag a sign on the hop plants letting my customers know what they are and have a little more information inside. I think it will be a good conversation starter and a chance to connect with my customres on a non-business level.

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Make sure the sign also warns any passers-by that the plant can be deadly poisonous to their dogs.

kombat said:

Make sure the sign also warns any passers-by that the plant can be deadly poisonous to their dogs.

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Not this again... There are literally thousands of plants that are deadly poisonous to dogs. How then, you ask, do all these dogs manage to stay alive? Most dogs are not know for walking around and munching every plant they encounter. The only cases of a dog being killed from hops are from eating the sticky, sweet, spent-hops post brewing.

So yes, please dispose of you spent hops carefully. As for a "hazard" sign around the plants...

nagmay said:

Most dogs are not know for walking around and munching every plant they encounter.

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Right. But some do. And IF they happen to be a Golden Retriever or a Greyhound, and IF that plant happens to be hops, then it can kill them.

nagmay said:

So yes, please dispose of you spent hops carefully.

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Of course. But it's not just the spent hops that are poisonous to them.

Hops, a plant used in making beer, can cause malignant hyperthermia in dogs, usually with fatal results. Certain breeds, such as Greyhounds, seem particularly sensitive to hop toxicity, but hops should be kept away from all dogs. Even small amounts of hops can trigger a potentially deadly reaction, even if the hops are "spent" after use in brewing.

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- Wikipedia

Ingesting hops can be highly toxic to some breeds of dogs (Golden Retrievers and especially Greyhounds have been documented). There are many scary stories on homebrewing forums about dogs eating hops after unsuspecting brewers left unused hops out in a place accessible to their dog, or dumped their kettle trub and hop sediment into the yard, or had a hop plant in their yard that dropped cones on the ground. Some dogs that ingest hops rapidly develop a condition called Malignant Hyperthermia, in which the body temperature rises uncontrollably. This can be very harmful or fatal to the dog.

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- Northern Brewer

Death has been reported in dogs poisoned by hops within 6 hours of ingestion (without treatment). Any breed of dog may be affected, but breeds predisposed to malignant hyperthermia (e.g., greyhounds, Labrador retrievers, Saint Bernards, pointers, Dobermans, Border collies, English springer spaniels, and northern breeds) are at higher risk for toxicity.

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- Pet Poison Helpline

nagmay said:

As for a "hazard" sign around the plants...

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*Shrug*

It's your business, you can do what you want. I'm just saying that if you're going to cultivate a plant that is known to be deadly poisonous to dogs, and you can't be bothered posting a warning sign, then any dog owner whose dog unwittingly eats said hops and subsequently dies would have a pretty open-and-shut lawsuit against you (notwithstanding the emotional guilt of knowing you were responsible for the death of an innocent, loving animal).

If you couldn't plant things that weren't poisonous to dogs you'd be pretty limited.

Sigh

http://www.aspca.org/Pet-care/poison-control/plant-list-dogs

A friend's dog used to eat a lot of vegetative matter. Her favorite were mesquite pods. She'd grab them with her front paws and peel them open with her teeth. I could see that dog eating the hops. However, I assume it takes more than a couple of cones for a dog to have serious issues, much like a dog can eat quite a bit of chocolate before they are in trouble. If your dog is the grazing type I would not have them in the yard but I don't think it is generally a problem. There are plenty of plants out there that look really great but are poisonous to humans, and yet we still plant them. Even ones that are attractive to kids with little red berries and such. The lesson here is to keep them away from those things if it's a problem for them, so don't let your dog munch on random bushes while going for a walk.

Fastmetal said:

If you couldn't plant things that weren't poisonous to dogs you'd be pretty limited.

Sigh

http://www.aspca.org/Pet-care/poison-control/plant-list-dogs

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That's a good list, but you noticed that less than half of that list was the "Poisonous" list, right? That page lists 388 varieties that are toxic to dogs, and 535 varieties that are not toxic to dogs. If you can't find a few plants out of those 535 that are "not toxic to dogs," then you're really not trying.

Were you under the impression that the entire page was just one big long list of plants that are toxic to dogs?

Awesome thread guys, sweet.


This is really great info on limiting the height of hops.

Just put a little garden fence around it and you should be fine.

I don't think the guy is purposely putting hops out to kill dogs so really you shouldn't approach him like he is. It is doubtful he'll see your point because you're busy shoving it in his face. A garden fence is a great compromise. Allows you both to have your ways.

I refuse to be a victim of people’s lack of common sense. Common courtesy would say don’t let your dog eat other peoples plants. Common courtesy also says not to drag your stupid dog everywhere but that line is definitely getting blurred. Don’t get me started on dogs on airplanes. So I will not be putting up a warning sign and I will not be installing a fence. F*** off and keep your dog out of my plants.

Whoa now - let's not beat up on kombat, who was just looking out for your and the k9s best interest.

I don't think that a sign is warranted anymore then it would be for: onion, fig, orange, mum, or any of those other plants on the list. As far as I know, no dog has ever been poisoned from ingesting a live hop plant.

That said, kombat had good intentions.

Lets say I cut off the growing tip of the bine and the subsequent new growing tips and then gave each a string to climb. As long as they were in full sunlight, would it be possible to get the same yield with the four 5 ft length as with a single 20 ft length? This is purely theoretical since I haven't started growing my own hops yet (still renting), but I'd like to avoid the 20 ft pole sticking up into the air so my (future) neighbors can't say anything about it.

I dont understand why you hate dogs so much and try to kill them every chance you get!

Just kidding! I've been to the shop, and my recommendation is to let them grow around the plant that's already on the arbor. (Maybe you can post a pic so the others know what I'm talking about). Or, perhaps, you could run a string along one side to let them climb up. I have no knowledge of gardening, botany, hops production, and I'm not even a very good brewer, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to keep the plants topped.

Ryush806 said:

Lets say I cut off the growing tip of the bine and the subsequent new growing tips and then gave each a string to climb. As long as they were in full sunlight, would it be possible to get the same yield with the four 5 ft length as with a single 20 ft length? This is purely theoretical since I haven't started growing my own hops yet (still renting), but I'd like to avoid the 20 ft pole sticking up into the air so my (future) neighbors can't say anything about it.

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If you pinch the growing tips 'early enough' in the growing season you could probably/theoretically get the 4-from-one situation to happen. But, each one of those is going to try to achieve maximum height which means that one shoot is now trying to supply enough energy to produce 4 times the cones as it would if it could have grown as a single. I've never done it and can't say that this is what will happen, but it seems to make sense to me. They prefer to grow straight up to about 20 feet for best results.

I've had mine grow in bushes basically and into a fence. Simple 6ft garden poles about 2ft off the fence line. 2nd year each plant gave 6oz to 1lb12oz depending on variety. They do okay, but definitely more exposure to sun is better. The outer surface has more and the top has more, the inner bines only account for maybe 10% of the total output.

Ryush806 said:

This is purely theoretical since I haven't started growing my own hops yet (still renting), but I'd like to avoid the 20 ft pole sticking up into the air so my (future) neighbors can't say anything about it.

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I'm hoping to eventually put up a nautical flag pole. 2 Bines growing up strings to each end of the yardarm. Then when growing season is over just fly Old Glory.

I'm lucky to have plenty of vertical space, even though I'm growing in a pot on my deck, but I've done a lot of reading about various space-limited situations, and ran across a couple of solutions other than cutting.

You could grow them level or near-level. This will require a fair amount of work, because the bine really "wants" to grow as straight up as possible, and will have to be trained back onto the (nearly) level line every couple of days when it grows straight up instead of wrapping sideways.

You could also string your line to a pulley, with a lot of extra line on the other side of the pulley, and let out some slack when the bine reaches the top. This will also require some work, as you have to be careful how the slack bottom portion of the bine lies; mostly I've seen people wrap the bottom in a spiral around the pot their hops are growing in, so it's not just sitting in a pile on the ground.

As far as I know, dogs can't read.

AP

feinbera said:

I'm lucky to have plenty of vertical space, even though I'm growing in a pot on my deck, but I've done a lot of reading about various space-limited situations, and ran across a couple of solutions other than cutting.

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I'm growing in half wine barrels. Last year was the first year. I understand that it's rare to get much if any production the first year, so I'm hopeful for this year. Last year, I let them grow around a tree stake that went up about 6' from the top of the soil. I didn't get any cones, and they seemed to go dormant a little earlier than I would have expected. cshann19 is my brother, and he planted the same rhizomes that I did. He ran them up a string from the base of his deck and got some production in the first year. He has since moved, which prompted this thread. He told me that when he dug them up the roots were quite deep. That caused me to wonder if part of my problem is that theres not enough space for the roots.

Sorry to hijack your thread brother, but does anyone have any thoughts on container grown hops?

There are some obvious disadvantages to a container. Rooting ability and moisture control are the two big ones. Lots of folks don't understand how massive a root system these plants can produce if given the proper environment. Another one that most likely will have an impact is temperature. The soil can help moderate temps to help keep the crown and the surface roots happy. You can grow them in containers but you'll have less fuss if you sink them in the Earth. Hop On!!

60sd, What kind of dirt did you plant them in? Just potting soil? Native dirt? I have had problems with other plants potted in straight potting soil.. I think its a water retention issue. I think a half wine barrel should be fine. IMO

It's probably 2/3 native soil (sandy loam) and 1/3 soil amendment from home depot. Plus some spent grains...

have had problems with other plants potted in straight potting soil.. I think its a water retention issue..

Is it too much water or too little. too much, put some drainage holes in. Too little? consider fine bark mulch on top to retain moisture.