Hop Trellis (sideways)

[dj1984]

just wanting to know if hops can be grown sidways and if there are any problems doing it this way

 

[NME69]

I suppose you could give it a try and manually hand tie it back to something.
Logic tells me that its going to want to grow upwards because basically thats where the sun is going to shine.
But then again I have seen it grow along fence lines too

 

[leeboy]

Hops don't usually grow below 4 feet in height so that will probably be your issue. Lovely vine, no hops. That has been my experience here in newcastle anyway. Had to grow them high to get good yeild. Someone into gardening might be able to explain why??

 

[fraser_john]

Hops will produce several main "shoots", each of which strive to grow as high as possible, these then produce laterally growing shoots. Flowers are produced on the upper part of the plant. If you train them sideways, they may not produce as much yield.

 

[Batz]

I grew my hops sideways one season,I had to tie them down every week or so.
They all ended up along the top of the trellis but worked OK,I got plenty of flowers and the trellis was only a metre tall.
Pics on the site somewhere.

Batz

 

[braufrau]

Apples are more productive if trained horizontally ... maybe hops would be too!
Give it a go and let us know!

 

[kofo]

Once they grow to the top of our trellis (3.5m), I train the them sideways, you have to keep wrapping them down otherwise they try and head up, but they can be trained easily enough. With a few extra horizontal wires, you can train some of the laterals as well, which produce a lot of flowers.
Not sure about yield reduction for a low trellis though, smaller plant smaller yield is probably right. Just expect a healthy vigourous plant to create loads of vine and leaf, which has to be trained somewhere, or cut back.

I read somewhere that side shooting, or the top vines falling over sideways is a signal for the plant to start creating flowers, time of season probably plays a part as well, by the time they are falling over its probably time to flower anyway.

Another interesting thing was a commercial grower on a utube video (yep theres a few, check em out) saying that the vines do their growing during the day, and wrap themselves up at night.

 

[dj1984]

i was thinking of going about 6ft tall and then right across my back yard

 

[tdh]

I've always grown mine 1.5m vertically and the balance (2-4m) horizontally with good results.
Just make sure they get trained to grow from east to west.

tdh

 

[fraser_john]

Mine are 2.4m treated posts, about 3m apart with 4 wires horizontally, I tether the shoots to the top wire and let them do whatever they want, none seemed to naturally utilize the horizontal wires!

http://rims-brewing.tripod.com/hop_plantation.htm Last years photos, have to update it as I have added more hop trellis for a few new rhizomes I got, though they are still in a "pot" of sorts (one half of a front-load washer drum!).

 

[leeboy]

I reckon there is a reason that professional hop plantations have them growing to 11m..

 

[kabooby]

I reckon there is a reason that professional hop plantations have them growing to 11m..

No expert but probally a greater yeild per square meter of land

Kabooby