I have two each of cascade, chinook, pearl, and willimett. They are growing like crazy but I seem to remember needing to cut them back to (here is the part I can’t remember) a number of bines. How many is it???
Barry
I train the 3 strongest bines onto each twine. Cut the rest back. Or, you can excavate them back to the crown, clip them off, and replant them in another hill. Expand the hop yard! Or donate them to another brewer.
:cheers:
Thanks.
Hadn’t thought about propagating the cutting but I will now
Barry
I took a bunch of Centennial cuttings one year, and planted them in their own new hill. They grew a full 15 feet tall and put out about 4 oz of cones!
I always trim mine back to 2 or 3 bines per plant.
Outfreakingstanding! Gotta love hops 
My two first year Cascades are already 12 feet tall with cones. My Kent Goldings are now about 8 feet tall and starting to form burrs. Florida really freaks out the first year plants. Those first little chutes break ground, poke their heads out, and say WTF??? It’s 80 degrees in March??? We’re not in Oregon anymore! Woooo hoooo!!!
[quote=“El Capitan”]I train the 3 strongest bines onto each twine. Cut the rest back. Or, you can excavate them back to the crown, clip them off, and replant them in another hill. Expand the hop yard! Or donate them to another brewer.
:cheers: [/quote]
I too have second year hops growning, one hill has about 11 bines 3 are > 3 inches the rest are just nubs. Does cutting them back to the crowns mean to trim them back to the original rhizome? Is that dangerous to dig it up like that being only 2 years old. The rhizome when planted last spring was about 4 inches long and only produced 2 bines. FYI: I am growing in Vermont.
Essentially, now that the rhizome has it’s own root system you can consider it a crown. During the first year it’s spending all of it’s energy doing a bunch of things like establishing a root system and also trying to send up shoots to produce cones which (in nature) can become fertilized and form seeds to allow that plant to further it’s existence. Normally, with everything that’s going on during the establishment year, the plant doesn’t have an excess of energy to begin making rhizomes. This usually begins in the second year (your present year) being that the roots are in place and it can focus on growing vines and foliage which will allow the plant to produce more energy than what it needs for normal growth.
Digging them up at this point usually doesn’t set them back to the point you can notice any difference but you’ll most likely not find any rhizomes, just a bunch of shoots that have developed lower on the crown. If the plant didn’t do super well the first year there’s nothing wrong with letting everything grow again this year. Next Spring you can do some pruning to harvest some rhizomes. Also, not all varieties are abundant rhizome producers. So have at it and Hoppy Trails!
B-Hoppy,
Thanks! That information was very informative. I decided to not try to get greedy with digging up rhizomes quite yet (second year). I simply went out there with some scissors and snipped off the weakest bines in favor of the three best ones (per hop plant). I felt horrible doing this. Those poor guys didn’t stand a chance 
Thanks for the good info here. I started my hops last year, but the bugs hit them hard. Each plant only had about 3 bines and none made it further than about 5 feet up. This year each plant has about 6-8 healthy-looking shoots already, but I think I’ll let them all go as A) bug insurance and B) to get one more year of healthy root growth before I start training them to maximize harvest.
