The Struggle Against the Hop Louse
Puyallup hop growers deploy new machinery and strategies to combat a devastating pest, signaling a shift in agricultural professionalism.
The story, cleaned up
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The hop business is starting here in earnest. There seems to be more activity than usual and a determination by the growers to raise a good crop in spite of the hop louse, which all growers are preparing to fight and exterminate. The growers seem to acknowledge now that the vermin is here to stay, and if a crop is to be raised, preparations must be made to fight the pest in the same manner as the English grower. Two good horse-power sprayers will be turned out this spring in Puyallup, both of which were out last spring but have been remodeled and perfected. One is the roller sprayer, which has all the machinery—pumps not excepted—inside the reservoir, keeping it clean by the emulsion and free from sand. M.J. Meeker is preparing his fields, though the season is backward, and he will not set roots until mid-April. Ezra M. Meeker is putting in twenty-five to thirty acres in Maplewood, having finished setting the poles this week.
“The growers seem to acknowledge now that the vermin is here, and here to stay for a time, and that if a crop is to be raised preparations must be made to fight the pest.”
The Puyallup Valley was once the world's primary hop producer, a legacy that shaped the region's landscape long before the modern real estate booms. Today, the 'hop louse' struggle serves as a historic reminder of the constant innovation required by Washington's agricultural industry to survive pests and shifting global markets.
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