South East - When to cut back hops

[htims05]

I was working with a buddy the other day - in the mountains of VA and we were re-doing his hop trellis. I took home two small cuttings of the rhizome and they are in a 50 gallon planter (I haven't decided if I'm going to put them in the ground for fear of invasion).

That said I've never grown hops, but in the last 3 weeks this has grown about 2 ft and is growing up the twine fine - I'm in northern SC where the low temp in the winter here is maybe 25f for a night or two for a few hours at most (this is the worst case, more likely its just at freezing or right around it)...daytime highs are 45 some 35ish days here and there.

I've read the online material that says to cut them down to just a few inches to a few feet before winter....but my winter is not really the same as someone in MN. Do I just hack them down even if they are still growing ferociously? Is there a daytime temp I should look for as to when to cut them back?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

That said I've never grown hops, but in the last 3 weeks this has grown about 2 ft and is growing up the twine fine - I'm in northern SC where the low temp in the winter here is maybe 25f for a night or two for a few hours at most (this is the worst case, more likely its just at freezing or right around it)

Sounds perfect - remember that hops are a temperate plant and positively benefit from a bit of frost, 25F is the min temperature average for the whole of January in Bavaria, it can get down to 0-10F.

So they should be able to work out for themselves when winter is coming and start dying off accordingly - but it's not the end of the world if you cut them back before then. Commercially they get cut at harvest (ie around now) and that's them done for the year, but obviously the rhizome will get more nutrition if you let the leaves phototsynthesise for a few more weeks.

Remember that they do manage to survive just fine in the wild without humans fussing over them the whole time!