Low Stress Training for Hops

Zuljin said:

One solid theory I did take away is that the plant does not have to be a certain height to produce. If size matters, it's length in any direction, not necessarily vertical up.

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Let me throw our observations in here. Can't really talk about LST as we just use something similar for plant propagation, not increased production.

How high did you get? From what we've seen, you have to be at least 12 to 14 feet before you start seeing real production. Bear in mind, this is a 2nd year plant. 3.5 oz is meager but probably not bad for TX. Next year, if you were up north, you should be looking at 1 to 1.5 lb dry (4.5 to 7 lb wet) from the plant depending on the variety.

I also observed that if a tip breaks, don't sweat it. New productive growth will put on like crazy. Topping or pinching bines? Maybe.

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If its early enough in the season, yep. topping, maybe but once the bine can't grow any higher, it usually takes care of this itself.

Another limiting factor is probably heat. The plant slowed down when we hit the 100s. There's a lot written about that. Hops don't like it so hot. Still though, I was able to grow the plant and harvest hops while staying true to our water restrictions. Strictly true, at that. I didn't play the technicality and hand water between the allotted two days a week.

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Oh HE11 yes. Actually, anything about 95F we saw most varieties go pretty dormant. The "noble" varieties (e.g.) Saaz) were probably at lower temperatures. The only ones that seemed to hang on were those mixed with native strains, though most of those are really hard to mechanically harvest.