Is it time to cut back bull shoots?

[Brewvy]

4th year plants, I've never cut them back in previous years, should I loop off all growing shoots at this point?

 

[Dland]

My approach is to let the plants develop all the biomass they can, and have had decent results and vigorous plants. Might not be the best approach, but works.

Pretty sure you should not lop off all shoots in any case.

 

[Dland]

So I've looked into this further since above post by me, which was uninformed particular to hops, but true of many vines, and video linked below is a good counter to it.

However, between the 8 hop varieties I have planted, some put out more early bines that are ''bull'' type than others. A key to judging this is may be the space between the inter nodes, if they are close together, may not be bull even if first shoots.

Anyway, I'm going to let mine grow unpruned again this year, but will revisit this myself a little earlier next year.

 

[Brewvy]

Yes I think the node spacing is the most important when choosing which bines to choose. I guess you don't want the hollow bines which will probably have more space between the nodes and are more prone to breaking. I chopped mine all back to the ground and I'll see what happens.

 

[Wesmando]

I killed several crowns over trimming my second year. I talked to a sales rep and learned that hop crowns only have so many growth buds per year, x amount of bull shoots and y amount of bines. Apparently i cut everything back the first three sprouting. I literally didnt leave anything left to grow. Im still learning, this year i never cut anything completely off, and i always leave at least one bine or bull shoot emerged.

 

[14thstreet]

Brewvy, thanks for posting and please update if you can. I have somewhat less-vigorous-than-yours Cascades in their third year. I want to say mine sprouted before Easter here in southeast Wisconsin but do not look as "bullish" as yours do according to the descriptions I've read. That is they aren't purple. So I can't decide if the shoots I have are bull shoots or not. There is a bit of give when I squeeze the stems as if they are hollow but I would not say these are wide soda straw hollow. I'm also not sure if the node spacing is small or not either. I've never cut them down previous, only to remove those I don't train up the twine. I got 9oz dry hops on 3 bines of this plant so maybe my yield is okay to not worry about it?

 

[shoengine]

I had terrible growth last year (second year plants) so this year I pruned once they were over a foot. At most I trimmed three) centennial had six or seven shoots, and on my plants with three or less shoots, I trimmed nothing. We'll see how the centennial does this year.

 

[ramjam]

i have some second year hallertau the first shoots were about six feet tall on sunday i went ahead and cut them all, i guess i will see if it helps this year

 

[NitrogenWidget]

my new plants from greatlakes hops are 2nd yr and still in pots.
there are a few longer shoots and shorter ones but I think I'll just not trim anything.
Maybe next yr after they have been in the ground for a yr and got a good root system going.