Pumpkin crop comes up short to start the fall

Weather a factor on small yields

— Experts predict Arkansas will produce fewer pumpkins this fall - prompting warnings of a possible shortage - but several farmers say they're expecting a bumper crop.

A cool, cloudy, humid growing season likely will mean fewer pumpkins for the Natural State, said Craig Andersen, an extension horticulture specialist for vegetables at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

"It's not the rainfall that gets them," said Andersen. "It's the hours of relative humidity. The plant diseases spread when there's free water on the surface of the leaves."

Andersen said pumpkin growers try to have the fruit ready to sell between Sept. 15 and Oct. 1. It normally takes three to four months to grow a pumpkin to maturity, but a lack of sunshine can extendthe growing season.

After a cool July and an "OK" August, much of the state experienced cloudy, rainy weather for two weeks until the sunshine broke through Thursday, Andersen said.

"If I could've picked the worst thing for pumpkins," he said, "it would have been two weeks of rain when what we need is dry weather."

Katie Peebles said theweather has affected Peebles Farm near Augusta, which has about 60 acres planted in pumpkins.

"Our yield hasn't been as high this year, and our pumpkins aren't as large," she said.

Peebles said the farm will produce about 15 percent fewer pumpkins this year compared to last. She said they've received "a tremendous amount of phone calls" from people all over the state looking for pumpkins.

"It was just the rain and not enough sunshine and just delay in getting ready," Peebles said. "We'll have pumpkins through November. We've got green pumpkins everywhere."

At Pumpkin Hollow near Piggott, Ellen Dalton said her yield is down about 10 per-cent to 15 percent, but the cost to spray plants with fungicide was way up.

"We've got some beautiful pumpkins," she said, "but it has been a very expensive crop this year."

Clyde Fenton at Fenton's Berry Farm near Harrison said his half-acre pumpkin patch has yielded only about 25 percent of his Sugar Pie pumpkins and about half of his jacko'-lantern pumpkins because of the soggy September. His Magic Lantern and Mustang cultivars were supposed to resist powdery mildew, but there was just too much rain for them, Fenton said.

Powdery mildew, a variety of different fungi, can coat leaves and stunt pumpkin growth.

He also blames the bees.

"The bees don't work in the rain," Fenton said. "If you're not pollinating those female flowers, they just drop off."

In other parts of the state, growers say the pumpkin crop is better than usual.

"For us it's better," said Shelby Collins of Schaefers & Collins Farm near Mayflower. "They're still hauling them in. The barn is full, and we have a place out in front of our house. They're stockpiled out there."

Nancy Drewry of Drewry Farm & Orchards near Dover said animals have caused more problems than weather.

"This has just been a really good year," she said. "What the deer and groundhogs didn't tear up, we harvested. We did donate a lot to the groundhogs and deer, though."

"We're in pretty good shape," said Dennis McGarrah, who owns McGarrah Farms near Pea Ridge. "Of course, the rain is going to have a tendency to rot the early mature ones."

Andersen said a good harvest can depend on location, sandy soil, drainage, use of fungicide and planting pumpkins that are resistant to powdery mildew, such as Merlin and Magic Lantern cultivars.

Little Rock's Motley's Pumpkin Patch, which has good sandy soil for drainage, said it was able to grow about 3,000 pumpkins this year but will need to find another 6,000 from other suppliers around the state, owner Randy Motley said.

"Pumpkins are a little harder to find this year. We are scrambling to find some and hope the supply holds out," he said.

Andersen said Arkansas normally has 1,000 to 3,000 acres planted in pumpkins. This year, it'll be 1,500 to 2,000 acres, he said.

Andersen recommends buying pumpkins by Oct. 15, storing them in a dry area and not carving until a day or two before Halloween. Don't store pumpkins on concrete because that causes condensation, he said.

The pumpkin shortage has been throughout the southeastern United States and in parts of the Midwest, Andersen said.

Caren Epstein, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said some stores have had a shortage of canned pumpkin because of a smaller-than-normal harvest last year. Pumpkins harvested for canning in August should be on store shelves within the next week or 10 days, she said.Canned pumpkin usually remains on the shelves for just over a year.

"This is a nationwide issue," she said. "It's not just Arkansas or the Southeast. The pumpkin growing areas of the country have experienced the second year in a row with crops smaller than usual." Information for this article was contributed by Jessica Clark of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13, 18 on 09/30/2009

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