My Second year hops are going nuts! Especially my Centennial, Chinook and Northern Brewer. They are at the top of my trellis and have grown 18-24" more in the last week. My trellis is about 15’ high and they are hanging over the top. I am worried that high winds (which we are having) would tear them off.
Does anyone know if I can train them to start growing back down? Will they do that? At the rate they are growing, if I let them keep going across the top, they will all intermix.
Help!
Lots of Spurs and hops forming
You can try but it’s like trying to get onto an inner tube out in the lake. You push down on the stem and the growing tip just pops back up toward the sun. If you try to train them horizontally you lose some of their production potential as the distance between the internodes is shortened and less sidearms are formed. They’re built to grow straight up.
So let them just do what they want?
What you might try is untie the string at the top, tie on additional string & reattach and let them hang loose. I’ve done this on a 18’+ trellis; let them keep climbing. You can even tie up the slack on fence posts or the supports for your trellis. Good luck!
snip the end bud off the bine and it wont grow any taller.
Let’em do what they want. Once the apically dominant tips turn downward all the side shoots will start growing more. I think this happens to some extent even when they are grown on a 20’ trellis.
Let them do what they want to at this point… The bines will start bunching up at the end where they’ve run out of room, and at first in kind of a clump, then start spitting out sidearms on down the line. You’ll have a massive harvest in the clump area, and a pretty good harvest from the rest of your hop bine from my experience. Once they decide to burr, their mind is made up, and your hops are coming! 
So for healthy second year, should I expect continual hop production throughout the season, or one and done? For my Chinooks it looks like I will he harvesting around late June or July. Is that plant done after that?
there may be some arly and there may be a few late but the bulk will be don at once. i wait untill they are just getting a very little gold on the edges then take em down to the drying table
+1 Letting them hang long enough to build good oil is key. My first year I picked too early and there was nothing in them. Last year I let them go as pashusa described and they were excellent.
