Scary times for growers: Weather spares Illinois pumpkins from the worst

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – New England pumpkin growers, who spent the early summer mostly losing a battle with rain that destroyed many pumpkins, face the frightening prospect that the rest won’t be ready before Halloween.

The relentless rain in June and July caused some seedlings to turn to mush in the soil and delayed the harvest up to 2 weeks, meaning pumpkins may not turn orange or grow large enough in time to be shipped to stores.

In Illinois, the nation’s pumpkin capital, it won’t be a bumper crop, nor will it be a disaster, said Mohammad Babadoost, professor of plant pathology at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

But there were challenges there. Large growers who can afford expensive crop treatments tended to fare better than smaller growers, said Dan Hinkle, who grows 1,000 acres of pumpkins in Cissna Park, Ill. Hinkle spent $500,000 on chemical applications to prevent disease and weeds. That doesn’t include fertilizer costs.

“As a general trend, most guys are going to do well, but I get a lot of calls from smaller growers, some who’ve even lost their entire crop to disease,” he said.

Across the country, things have changed since the days when farmers tossed a few pumpkin seeds on the ground and hoped for the best. It’s now a $250 million crop, Lucier said.

Nationwide, 92,955 acres of land were devoted to growing pumpkins in 2007, compared with 25,985 acres in 1982, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The bulk of pumpkins will be carved into jack-o’-lanterns or used as other decorations, while about 13 percent are canned for pie filling, Lucier said.

The weather also caused sporadic problems in the Midwest, but overall the crop will be average in top pumpkin-producing states like Illinois, Pennsylvania, California, Ohio and Michigan.