2nd year cascade questions

[johngie]

My second year cascade plant is acting a little strange.
It's about 20' tall and there are quite a few cones but they are small, maybe 1/2 the size of the centennials next to it. They do have lots of lupulin and smell great.

The odd thing is it seems the cones have stopped growing and it's now sending out more side shoots further down the bines closer to the ground.

The small cones aren't ready yet (they are still a little firm).

Is this normal? Are the smaller cones going to be viable?

 

[BBL_Brewer]

I have (2) 4th year cascade plants and (1) 2nd year. My 4th year plants are doing the same thing yours are. Massive bines, lots and lots of cones, but all the cones are pretty small. My 2nd year plant is not near as big, but the cones are huge and smell way better than the cones on my 4th year plants. I've been pondering this and I think that I have been training too many bines on my older plants. I've been training (6) bines per pland and (3) bines per string. I think next year I will only train 2-3 bines per plant and see if that makes a difference. I think that there are just too many cones for the plants to keep up with and that's why they are smaller. The cones although small will definitely be usable. I had pretty small cones last year as well and have been making great beer with them. The only problem is, it takes forever to harvest and dry all those little things As for a few new shoots here and there, that's normal. All my hops do that. I also grow centennial and CTZ. It seems like there always a few burrs floating around even at harvest time.