I've got 13 different hop rhizomes planted...most thriving fairly good, but my Centennial and Magnums seem to grow well, but lack the desire to grow UP (kind of like one of my offspring ). Could this be a deficiency in the soil? They are both planted in the same area. Boron?
Did you pull most of the shoots so growth could be concentrated in a couple of bines? I could never get Magnum to do well here; my plants died after 2 years. The Cascades 5 feet away are threatening to cover the barn a la the 'meteor shit' in Stephen King's Creepshow. Centennial is in between, low yielding but it hangs in there (being in VT, I suspect it's not getting enough sun). My soil is very rich and well drained.It's a mystery, but I'm leaning toward disease of some sort. The Magnum with little/no American genes in its pedigree maybe just couldn't handle it. The snow has mostly melted off my beds but there is still a couple inches of ice that needs to melt. It's cold ice; we had 16 days below zero F here in March.
Gotta say this bit of conventional wisdom is a very weak argument. The very idea a plant needs to be trimmed because it can't sustain robust growth in its natural state is goofy. This same logic is often applied to the lowly garden tomato plant and corn. Must trim suckers! Not. I suspect this CW is a simply a carry-over from commercial farming pratices which make it impractical to cultivate and harvest by having more than three bines per hill. Does this grow look as if it's been trimmed?
OP is apparently experiencing robust growth, just not the form he desires. Most wild hops I've seen have a huge tangled mat of bines within 3-4 feet of the ground, with only a lucky few making it into the trees. I agree you'll get plenty of hops letting the plants sprawl as they may but they would be a PITA to pick... of course trained hops are a PITA to pick too. The fact that people are developing low growing 'dwarf' hops indicates that you have a point.
I'm letting my Cascade and Centennial clusters fly their freak flags this year. Just training and feeding but no trimming. Will see.
I think I will try the same thing. I was just looking at mine and thinking that I needed to start trimming them back because they are going crazy. I'd rather not put in the effort
One year I followed expert advice to trim all growth until some number of days after they first appeared and then train no more than three bines. Years earlier...the same person advised me to go long on Lucent Technologies.
