first year hops - trim shoots?

I planted 4 rhizomes this year. 1 of them has 2 shoots coming up. Should i cut on and just leave one shoot?

My experience is to leave the first year hops alone and let them get established. Normally you won't get much of a yield from them. But there have been other people that have gotten a decent "crop" their first year. Keep them watered and add some fertilizer once or twice a month. Miracle grow works well.

how tall do most first year shoots get? the paper that came with mine say 8-10 feet. I dont plan on having a full trellis setup, but i dont want them to end up being 25 foot tall and not having the proper trellis.

let everything grow. year 1 is an establishment year and the crown needs all the help it can get, so the more foliage, the more food the plant can produce. some hops do very well the first year (20 or so feet) and others not so well. if they hit the top of the trellis, they'll just continue to grow until they weigh themselves down and continue to grow back up to the top - over and over.

My first year produce hop bines in lengths of 25', 20', 12' (wind damage). I let 2 bines grow on each variety and did not trim anything off until they bines were about 6' tall.

An absolute minimum is 2 shoots and 3-4 is better the first year. But, at the very least, do not trim anything until you have bines that are 3 feet long.

this sounds silly, but I'll post in this thread....when you 'trim' does that mean cut it all the way to the dirt level? Or how far down do you actually trim them back?

first year = no trim. when it's time to trim, you should try to remove the shoot as close to the rhizome as possible. "why"? because the portion that remains 'un-trimmed' will basically turn into a rhizome (an underground stem containing shoots which have the ability to produce new plants). so now you have an untrimmed shoot that will develop at least one ring of buds that will produce say 6 new shoots next spring. if you have 'trimmed' 10 shoots back this year, what will you have next year. 6 x 10 = 60 shoots. this does not take into account the new shoots to be produced from the original rhizome. believe me, if they are growing in half way decent conditions, by your 4th of 5th year you'll end up with a lot of work pulling excess shoots every spring unless you begin to do some sever pruning prior to this point. i'm not making things up, just trying to let you all in on what is to come.