Despite the drought that ravaged the U.S. Midwestern farm belt, pumpkin crops seem to be relatively unaffected. Farms in St. Louis, Illinois and in the state of New York have reported excellent harvests, Associated Press reports.
Pumpkin is one of the crops that grew successfully through the drought this year. The dry weather has worked in its favor.
"The harvest is exceptional, especially our white pumpkin crop. They tend to like drier weather," Maureen Smith of Smithome Farms in Big Flats told the Star-Gazette of Elmira, reports Wall Street Journal. "Pumpkins in general like drier weather. Otherwise the stems rot. We did hand water our pumpkin field, but a little drier is better than too much rain for pumpkins."
The dry weather also prevented the usual spate of diseases and infections that wet weather brings. There has been less number of fungal attacks and other diseases which cause pumpkins to rot due to the warm weather, said Dan Egel, a plant pathologist in Purdue University, reports AP. Moreover, unlike corn and soy, pumpkins can reach deep underground to reach moist soil to obtain water.
The drought has farmers putting their cattle in the market due to their inability to afford animal feed. But pumpkin farmers are rejoicing.
Fans of Halloween can rejoice too, as they will not be seeing a shortage of one of the staples of Halloween - time foods and Thanksgiving dinners, a little later. In 2009, Libby's reported a major shortage in canned pumpkins which put chefs and home-cooks in a bind. Libby's is the most popular brand of canned pumpkin in the U.S. Too much rain led to several problems that year, including fungal attacks and difficulty in getting farming equipment into the fields to harvest pumpkins.
"Mother Nature can mess with you, and there can be consequences," said Roz O'Hearn, a Nestle spokeswoman, reports AP, according to Huffington Post. "In the past couple of years, we've been at the opposite ends of the Mother Nature continuum."
However, this year things are evidently different.
According to John Ackerman who has pumpkin farms in Morton, Illinois, "pumpkins have been kind of a bright spot in production this year," as reported by AP.
Some fields are having such a vibrant crop that the fields have become a holiday destination for many. People go to pumpkin farms over the weekends to help pick pumpkins - much like truffle picking in France and Italy.
