I can’t tell you guys the “right” thing to do, but I can give some thoughts and share some pictures.
As far as the “right” thing to is concerned, I think the best question to ask is, what do commercial growers do? Some farms have thousands of plants, so it really wouldn’t be economically practical to try to control the sidearms. As far as I know, they strip the bottom 3-4 feet of foliage and sidearms, then they let the plant do it’s thing.
All that said, most of us are not commercial growers. So some of the rules don’t apply to us. Some of us, myself included, try to keep things orderly.
I learned a geeky term from GLH’s website: “Clavate”. Which means the plant sidearm’s tend to get longer towards the top of the plant. Two of my 4 plants are already showing this tendency. The 3rd, Alpharoma is advertised a clavate grower as well.
My cascade plant on the other hand exhibits the same behavior you all are describing. The side arms start growing early and aggressively from the bottom up. I personally train them up the lines as able. With my current set up it’s kind of annoying and laborious, but IMHO, it’s better than having them drooping all over the ground.
So here are some pictures:
This was my Cascade plant’s third season at my old house in 2017. You can see the insane side arms. I had already trained the lower side arms.
This is the Cascade’s 4th season, full glory in July 2018, with the insane sidearms mostly trained. Important note: Cascade is susceptible to aphids, and as beautiful as this picture is, I did not control the aphids, so by August our patio was infested. Very unpleasant. I’m looking into organic pesticides as needed for later this summer.
We moved and I transplanted my Cascade in Fall 2018. New setup, same crazy sidearms. Some over 6 feet long. These pictures w
taken today
These last two pics are of my Arcadian and Hartwick plants. You can see the Clavate behavior. Higher sidearms are all longer.
Short story long: I think it just depends on the variety.
Hope that helps!