How much can I cut back?

Second year hops.

They have begun to grow (much better than last year)
There are about 10-15 bines growing with 1 or 2 dominate ones from every plant.

Can I cut back 10+ short bines (2-6 inches) from a plant without killing it? I plan on leaving just the 1 or 2 longer bines to do their thing.

Good question i have 2nd year hops as well, was planning on keeping 4 - 5 bines on each since i'll be using them as much ornamentaly as for brewing. I'm curious to know what others have done in the second year though.

I'm not sure what the right answer is.

My second year hops had 20+ bines. I ran three seperate strings up and chose 2-3 of the tallest bines for each string and then snipped the rest.

The pro's usually run two to three bines up each section of twine, so four or six bines from each crown are allowed to grow. I think that if you want you could do a few more and have a bushier plant that might not reach 25'. When you think about growing on the pro scale, those guys go for max height, max air flow, and max production. Training eight pr crown may cut down on yield just a touch but I would guess that with one plant the difference would be pretty negligible.

Cutting the extras won't hurt the main bines. 2-4 bines is the best number. Don't forget, any energy and nutrients than go into more bines don't go into cones.

On second year and older hop plants -

Once you have 4-8 solid growing bines heading north on the ropes coiling on their own , then cut everything else back to the crown.

For growers who are not used to growing things this seems counter productive and difficult to do, but by doing this you make the plant push energy into just the selected bines and a better crop results from this.

For first year growth my horticulturist friend suggested - in the absence of professional hop growers input - that we allow all greenery to grow to make better root systems and not thin out the shoots. I never found any better info for first year growth and it seemed to work well for us, as we got some harvest and our second year hops have gone NUTS - already 10ft in some varieties.

My first year plants were in potting soil, planters for a while, then I planted them late June into the ground and let them do their thing. I don't think I saw a bine more than 18", maybe 2 foot. So good to hear.

This year, there are def. more bines and I cut back one plant to 1 bine and 3 plants to 2 bines. But I get nervous, because I am NOT a gardener, or plant-grower-guy. That seemed like a lot of green to be trimming off the plants.
4 days later, and I now have 2-1/2 foot bines making their way up the strings.

!