New To Hop Growing...Just Some Ideas

[mrgrimm101]

Hello, this year will be my first attempt at growing hops in my backyard. I've spent many hours looking at various trellis designs and I've included a drawing (bow before my epic MSPaint skills!) of the design I want to go with. I think it will work well for me considering it's pretty basic.

I want to plant 2 different varieties with 2 rhizomes each (centennial for sure and other other I'm undecided on). I've seen it where people split the lines where each plant comes out of the ground and they have 2 vines that grow up from the same root. My question is, does the plant naturally split off and grow up each line, or do I have to do some cutting or moving of vines?

Also, how far down in the ground do the stakes have to be? I was going to get some J bolts to anchor into the stakes and maybe some metal O rings for the top where the lines meet the top line. However, this might cause the lines to slide along the top line too much..I wanted to get red cedar 4x4's for the poles and coir yarn for the lines. I was going to let the top line come down one of the poles so I can adjust the slack as the vines grow bigger. The dimensions aren't set in stone..I might get taller poles if I can.

Any input or opinions that others have would be much appreciated. Like I said, this will be my first attempt so I'm trying to keep things fairly basic this year..

 

[user 194292]

Very similar to a design I did testing 6 plants. I used 2 toprail fence sections and bolted pulleys to the top. I bolted the toprail to existing posts in a chainlink fence with u-bolts - 2 to each post. Ran large nylon rope between the posts and suspended sisal twine down to a wire running the length of my bed. It looked just like your drawing. I had 4 centennial and 2 zeus planted 3 feet apart and did the "V" for the twine. You will need to "help" the bine onto your twine when it gets long enough. Gently wrap the bine clockwise around your twine. Be very careful not to damage the very end of the bine. I wrapped 2 bines to each run of twine. After they got about 3 feet, I pruned back any additional bines that grew. My stakes were metal construction stakes that have holes in them to run wire through and were down probably 8 inches. Have fun with it. I enjoyed it enough to expand to 200 plants this year!

 

[TeeJo]

One of the better ideas I have seen suggested, is to run a horizontal line between the poles at 3-4 feet height and use that to run drip irrigation as well as anchor the drops to.

This will give you a solid place to anchor your drop lines while keeping them from being in contact with the moisture in the ground.

I think I will likely do this with mine. I put in 8 rhizomes with a pole for each. Like as not, at ~4 foot spacing, I will end up having to move two poles to separate the root systems of the adjacent crowns, but I plan on leaving them alone for the time being.

TeeJo

 

[Bobcatbrewing42]

All of the weight of the hop vines is going to pull inwards on your two poles. An easier design as suggested in the article "Small scale hop production," (written by Crannog hop farm and organic brewery) is to use one pole and run lines from the ground so that the shape looks like a TeePee. The forces offset each other.

 

[mrgrimm101]

All of the weight of the hop vines is going to pull inwards on your two poles. An easier design as suggested in the article "Small scale hop production," (written by Crannog hop farm and organic brewery) is to use one pole and run lines from the ground so that the shape looks like a TeePee. The forces offset each other.

To fix this I am going to run 2 guy wires about 10' out from each pole and I am going to set them about 6'-10' apart from each other.

 

[danielward56]

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This is what I have been doing for years it works great.

 

[bragona71]

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This is what I have been doing for years it works great.

how tall are your posts?