Fiesta and Famine

Hoptopia ◽

10.1525/california/9780520277472.003.0008 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Peter A. Kopp

Keyword(s):

Downy Mildew ◽

Pacific Coast ◽

Peak Level ◽

Willamette Valley ◽

National Leader ◽

The Pacific ◽

Live Music

With the repeal of Prohibition and the reemergence of a domestic beer market, Willamette Valley farmers once again caught “hop fever.” Acreage expanded to its peak level in history by 1936. This chapter explains how hop farmers became more organized and initiated the first successful hop grower organizations. These organizations achieved success in marketing controls and improving the region’s reputation. Simultaneously, Willamette Valley growers successfully expanded the celebratory nature of the hop harvest by implementing a Hop Fiesta to attract workers. The event became one of Oregon’s most important annual cultural affairs, as growers drew in thousands of harvest workers with the promise of clean camping, live music, dancing, parades, and even the crowning of a Hop Queen. Despite this success in the 1930s, however, a botanical disease, called downy mildew, had crept its way to the Pacific Coast, leaving many hop fields in ruins. By 1943, Oregon relinquished its hold as the national leader in hop production.

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The Surprise of Prohibition

Hoptopia ◽

10.1525/california/9780520277472.003.0007 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Peter A. Kopp

Keyword(s):

World War I ◽

Fruits And Vegetables ◽

Pacific Coast ◽

Willamette Valley ◽

World War ◽

Agricultural Lands ◽

The Pacific ◽

The World ◽

Eighteenth Amendment ◽

The Great War

The threat of prohibition inspired Willamette Valley hop growers to join their farming brethren on the Pacific Coast to enter a political fight. It was a fight, however, that failed, as Oregon voters approved an initiative to prohibit the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol five years before Congress ratified the Eighteenth Amendment. Many hop growers abandoned the trade in fear of prohibition, along with others farmers that moved in the direction of grain, fruits, and vegetables to help in the World War I era. But those who stayed planted in hops were wise to do so. As the Great War unfolded in Europe, agricultural lands lay ruined. Additionally, Germany’s aggression corroded their hold on the international hop market. Willamette Valley growers seized the opportunity to expand their distribution shortly after the war and through the 1920s. So great was the success that even during Prohibition that eliminated domestic beer markets, Oregon growers expanded acreage in every year of the “dry decade.”

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Hop Fever

Hoptopia ◽

10.1525/california/9780520277472.003.0004 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Peter A. Kopp

Keyword(s):

Pacific Northwest ◽

Pacific Coast ◽

Cash Income ◽

Transfer Of Knowledge ◽

Willamette Valley ◽

Specialty Crops ◽

Specialty Crop ◽

The Pacific ◽

Crop Agriculture

Following increased settlement of the Far West and the completion of transcontinental railroads by the 1870s, farmers expanded specialty crop agriculture. This chapter provides context for the movement to hops and other specialty crops in diversified farming to provide cash income, not only in the Willamette Valley but elsewhere across the Pacific Coast. The chapter is framed by the story of Ezra Meeker, of Puyallup, Washington, who, from the 1860s to the 1890s, was the largest producer and promoter of hops in the Pacific Northwest. His story and others show how hop growing was an intensely global enterprise, from the importation of hop roots to the Far West to the transfer of knowledge that included multiple trips back and forth across the country and across the Atlantic to establish markets and acquire information.

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Invasive Blackberry Species in Oregon: Their Identity and Susceptibility to Rust Disease and the Implications for Biological Control

Invasive Plant Science and Management ◽

10.1017/inp.2017.12 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 143-154 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

William L. Bruckart ◽

Jami L. Michael ◽

Michal Sochor ◽

Bohumil Trávníček

Keyword(s):

Biological Control ◽

Pacific Coast ◽

Field Survey ◽

The United States ◽

Willamette Valley ◽

Rust Disease ◽

Rubus Fruticosus ◽

The Pacific ◽

Rubus Armeniacus ◽

Survey Results

Two of the five species of European blackberry (Rubus fruticosus L. aggregate) along the West Coast of the United States are considered invasive. They are also similar in appearance. Biological control of invasive blackberry by Phragmidium violaceum, causal agent of a rust disease, had been under consideration when rust-diseased blackberry was discovered in Oregon in 2005. An investigation was initiated to determine whether this disease would be an important factor affecting population density of these blackberries. Surveys were made over a 5-yr period at more than 30 field sites in the Willamette Valley and along the Pacific coast of Oregon. Diseased and nondiseased blackberry specimens were collected for artificial greenhouse inoculations and for identification. The two blackberry species, Rubus armeniacus and R. praecox, were identified as the most invasive. They were readily distinguished morphologically on the basis of inflorescence and flower characteristics and to a certain extent by differences in primocane leaf and leaflet shape. Artificial greenhouse inoculation studies revealed that R. praecox was susceptible to the rust disease and that R. armeniacus was not. These results were confirmed during a field survey. Results of this investigation revealed that the rust disease will not be effective for biological control of R. armeniacus and other approaches to management of this particular species will be required.

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The Philological Association of The Pacific Coast

PMLA ◽

10.1017/s0030812900130597 ◽

1935 ◽

Vol 50 (4) ◽

pp. 1373-1374

Keyword(s):

Annual Meeting ◽

Pacific Coast ◽

Stanford University ◽

The Pacific

The thirty-seventh annual meeting of the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast was held at Stanford University, California, on November 29 and 30, 1935.

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