Disappointing Discovery

The main bine on the Cascade plant is dieing. While checking the growth of the hop cones, I noticed a small section of the bine near the soil that was essentially withering and dieing. I don't know if the bine got pinched at that spot (I don't know how since its part of a straight section that never moved), was eaten by bugs (never noticed any) or just died for unknown reasons. Although the bine still appears healthy and alive, everything past that point will obviously soon be dead, including the developing hop cones that I had just recently discovered. Although there are lots of other bines on the plant, this was the first one out of the soil, the first one to reach the top of the trellis and the first one to develop hop cones.

I checked the other bines on both plants for dead sections like this and didn't see any, but noticed that some bines have brownish blotches that basically look like the bruised areas of a banana. Hopefully this isn't indicative of some sort of infection or disease.