Been lazy, hops are in piles.

[Rahahb]

I've never had a good harvest on my hops and I've been following the same routine. Let the first shoots grow, trim all the others. Have been seeing some people(all?) benefit from cutting first growth, and allowing the second round to be the producers. I know that's partially for timing the harvest.

I've let my plants go too long, and now they are in piles which resembles tangled phone charger cables....Estimated length on the some might be 3-4'. Others only a foot or so.

Anyway, part of me wants to cut them to the ground and go from there. However, if it's advised against, I'll do my best to pick a few strong ones from each plant.

What would you do?

 

[day_trippr]

I'd cut 'em.

In fact I have pretty much the same situation right now: we've had some construction and a new roof being done and the hop trellis would have been in the way.
So I have fifteen 5 year old crowns burying themselves in their first shoots.

The work was completed and the new roof finished yesterday, so this weekend I'm planning on cropping them all right back to grade and starting over.

It'll be a few weeks later than usual so who knows what'll happen, but to be honest, I'm still swimming in last years Cascade/Centennial/Chinook/Fuggles, so if it all goes pear shaped I'm ok with it...

Cheers!

 

[dyqik]

If there are good looking untangled 1 foot long shoots, you might try to save those when cutting the mess back. Just do it on a plant by plant basis.

 

[day_trippr]

After cropping everything to grade, digging up the numerous expansion attempts, and then tossing three bushels of greens, runners and wide-ranging roots, I now have 15 totally pissed-off crowns.

By the end of the week there will be a thousand new shoots to cull.
Fun times...

Cheers!

 

[Saboral]

Mine have 2-3 main shoots climbing my trelis, but with the last 17 days of rain here in VA I haven't gotten outside to cull back the ground growth. Guess I know what I'm up to tomorrow evening.