To prune (shoots) or not to prune - that is the question?

I have been growing hops for about 4 years now, and last year was a very successful year. I managed to get 1.1 kg of Mt Hood, 0.45 kg of nugget, and 0.6 kg of cascade (all dried weights) from a single plant of each variety. Next year my Fuggles and Sterling should also produce, which will leave me with more hops than I can use.

My questions relates to the pruning of the shoots/runners. I see many references to training 2 or 3 shoots onto each string/twine (total of 6-9 shoots assuming you have 3 strings for each plant). What is the main purpose of this pruning strategy? Is it to increase the yield of cones, or is it to make harvesting easier as a result of alot less tangling?

Up to this point I have not been pruning the plants. I simply train all of the shoots/runners onto the trellis lines and let them go nuts. My yields have been decent thus far so I don't really need to eke out more yields, although the engineer in me wants to maximize yield wherever possible. Harvesting the giant tangled mass that results from all of the shoots is a bit challenging so if pruning would alleviate this then I would consider doing so. One other consideration if that these plants do have some aesthetic constraints since they are in the yard and must look good to appease my wife. I'm not a real big fan of the isolated shoots on strings type of look, and much prefer the look of the full green mass of the hops plant as they intertwine.

So basically I was hoping to get some input on what the rest of you do with your plants. Do you prune or not and why? Am I sacrificing yield by keeping everything or is it just a matter of convenience in harvesting?

Thanks for the help.

Cheers,

Greg

I pruned back to about 3 bines per length of twine for the past couple of years. I'm running about 6 lengths of twine for each plant if I recall correctly.

Having too many bines bunched together increases the risk of infestation and disease, particularly powdery mold (I think that's what it's called--it's an enemy to many hop varieties.) If you keep things a little more open, the moisture from morning dew or recent rain evaporates off more quickly and that helps the plants.

On the other hand, I've noticed that every once in a while, a bine will get snagged/tangled in the twine somewhere, and that's the end of it's journey to the top. And sometimes bines get kinked, pinched, broken, etc. so you don't want to put all your eggs into only a few baskets.