Hops climbing along top wire

[archimedes29]

I'm growing hops for the first time. I have multiple varieties and most have reached the top wire. Instead of stopping, they have now started to climb along the wire. Should I just let them be or should I trim them to stop the from continuing? My thought is that trimming the top would make the hops for us more of their energy into filling out.

Hop bines

 

[mashpaddled]

Hops will keep growing as long and tall as they can. If you cut the bines, they will just grow from a lower leaf. You can fertilize to encourage cone production over vegetative growth, but they will always continue to grow. As far as they know, they are growing for years of survival and want the pollen to spread as far as possible by growing as tall as possible.

You may have to work on trimming the bines back weekly (or more frequently) just to keep the bines from getting tangled with each other and making it harder to harvest separately.

 

[archimedes29]

Thanks for the reply. I have started to fertilize them occasionally. My primary concern is that the different varieties will grow together.

 

[day_trippr]

Let 'em go where they want to go!

This is from 8 years ago when I was still growing Chinook, Cascade, Centennial and Fuggles, when they were yielding pounds of dry cones to the vac bagger and freezer. Fortunately that was also the era when WCIPAs and face-ripping IBUs were the rage so I had plenty of material to work with

Cheers!