Commercial Hop Trellis

[MAiton]

I'm in the midst of laying out my hop trellis design for some trials starting this spring and I have a couple questions regarding what people are using for their designs and dimensions.

From what I have read, a 35' pole spacing in my rows is sufficient for growing cascade hops comfortably, however my real concern pertains to the row spacing itself. Some have indicated 10' spacing between poles whereas others use 20'. With the 20' spacing, there appears to be the same amount of vine lines but with less support (See Attach'd). What setup has everyone had the best experiences with? And if sizes do work, does one method require less maintenance than the other over time, i.e. wire rope sag?

Also, what has everyone used for wire rope sizes? Support lines? Main Lines? Vine Lines?

My test area will be 40' by 140'

Mike

 

[GVH_Dan]

Every design is a trade off between poles and wire. We've moved to more wire because the poles we could afford tended to wear out to fast.

Spacing and strength is more than just the weight of the plants but also wind load pushing on the sides.

To get a bit more specific, on our 1 acre designs we went anywhere from 35 to 50' with poles in every row. Row spacing was more based on the width of our tractor/scaffolding and whether it is a single twine or "v" configuration for each crown.

Definitely coir twine for the plant to climb.

 

[TroyD]

Seems as though during my research, a lot of people are going to V designs as they can train more bines from each mound. Are there certain varieties that benefit from this design? It's significantly more wire overhead, but it also seeps that it keeps more of the ground shaded helping with moisture control at the roots and in the hills for possibly less watering and less evaporation? Those designs I've been seeing 2 cables run parallel to the hill overhead lines so the lines are actually 12' apart (or wider if machinery is needed for wider) with 3 ft offset on each hill leaving 6ft between the rows overhead. So the dimensions would be, overhead wire (directly over the hill), 3' for one bine offset, then 6' space, then 3' for the other row bine offset.

 

[GVH_Dan]

The primary reason for doing it is to get a higher yield from each crown. If you are getting 1 lb (dry) per crown on a single string, a typical yield for a "V" is 1.5 lb or more. Of course each variety behaves differently and it seems to vary regionally, so I can't give you a prediction on any one.

The downside is the extra infrastructure and more space between rows to allow your equipment to fit. The biggest downside is the extra harvest time. Harvesters work on bines/hr, not crowns per hour. So if you have 1,000 crowns, you are now harvesting 2,000 bines instead of 1,000. It will take twice as long so factor that into your economic analysis.