From Yard to Pint Glass: Mastering the Art of Growing Hops at Home | Training

Welcome to our Series of Growing Backyard Hops.  If you missed part 1 and 2 of the series: Plants or Rhizomes, you can find it here and Planting here.

In Part 1 of this series of Growing Backyard Hops, we covered choosing the variety and rhizomes vs plants. Part 2 covered how to get those plants into the ground.

Part 3: Training and Pruning

The best time to move onto training and pruning is when the hop bines are knee to hip height.  We usually see this in late May here in Alberta.  Successful hop cultivation requires a bit of understanding of the plant’s unique characteristics and best practices, but hops are great at adapting to their environment so don’t worry about getting it wrong. In this blog post, we'll dive into the essentials of stringing and training your hop bines, ensuring they grow strong and healthy. 

Bine vs Vine

The hop plant, Humulus lupulus, is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial known as a bine. That’s not a typo—a bine is the vine’s lesser-known cousin. While similar in many ways, there are key differences that set them apart. Interestingly, hop bines always grow clockwise, following the direction of the sun as it moves through the sky and around the twine.

Stringing

Hop yards rely on twine to string their trellis systems, providing essential support for hop plants. A full-grown hop plant can weigh between 20-35 pounds and up to 45 pounds when wet. To accommodate this weight, the industry standard is coconut husk coir, chosen for its strength and durability. For backyard hops, you could easily use a strong sisal twine. It’s suggested to use organically made twine rather than synthetic or binder twine. This is because the plant will wrap around it and be cut down each year. If you use sisal or coir twine, you can throw the harvested bine and twine into your city compost heap, if you can’t compost the twine it is all garbage. I specifically mention city compost here.  If you are not on a city compost plan, consider composting your hops at a different location to prevent pathogens, pests, and diseases from infesting the new year’s growth.

To maximize our yield and allow for the greatest amount of airflow through our hopyard, we use two pieces of coir in a V shape for each plant. This method allows us to effectively support and train two sections of the same plant, ensuring robust growth and stability. In your yard, you can string a single line or multiple lines from the plant up to the support. It’s best to allow some space between the twine and any backstop, such as a fence or house. This is because the bine will spin clockwise around the twine to grow and attach. However, if we’ve learned anything from watching hops grow in various locations, it’s that they will find a way.

Training and Pruning

One of the biggest tasks with hops is training and pruning. Hops are very vigorous plants that require a heavy hand when it comes to pruning. The goal is to encourage growth in a few specific bines. Think quality, not quantity.  

In many hop growing regions they will swear by cutting back the first shoots and waiting for the second growth.  There are many good reasons for this; eliminate weak bines, direct the plant’s energy to more productive shoots, and time the growth of the hops to match the season/sun.  There is mixed data on whether cutting back is necessary.  For those of us that live with such a short frost-free period, cutting back may limit your growing time and you may not reach the “top of the wire” before they start sending out side arms… but side arms are a blog for another day.  If you have consulted other sources you may also have heard of “bull shoots”.  These are the shoots that are first out of the ground.  There is also conflicting data on these, and some will say “bull shoots are bull sh*t”.  

BEFORE

AFTER

For training and pruning, the industry standard is to choose 3-5 strong looking bines per twine.  These bines are chosen for their strength and potential to produce the best cones. The remaining bines are pruned away to reduce competition and improve airflow.  Carefully wrap each bine in a clockwise motion around the twine.  Ensuring the bines are securely attached to the twine is essential for supporting their weight as they grow taller and heavier.  The bines have rough hairs to grab the twine and velcro them together.  Hops lead from the tip of their bine, so once they are velcroed to the bine - they shouldn’t move too much.

Over the next few days check back to ensure that the hops have stayed wrapped around the twine.  Continue to cut back any new shoots to keep the plants energy on the chosen bines.