Dry, hot summer threatens Indiana's pumpkin crop

INDIANAPOLIS -- Steve Nesbitt is a lot like Linus these days -- he's on the lookout for the Great Pumpkin.

With the Halloween pumpkin-buying season about a month away, the vines in Nesbitt's 10-acre pumpkin patch in southwestern Indiana should have dropped under the weight of the fruit. Instead, a drought and heat that has lasted for months have slowed the ripening.

For Nesbitt, owner of Nesbitt Orchards near Vincennes, there aren't any great pumpkins to be found. Most are underdeveloped and struggling, no bigger than softballs.

"I'd say 50 percent of our vines have not even set pumpkins. The blooms are burnt off," Nesbitt said. "The pumpkins ought to be the size of a beach ball. They should be averaging about 25 pounds, and right now they are averaging about 10 to 12."

The health of the pumpkin crop is spotty throughout much of Indiana. Some farmers are clinging to the rain they've had and hope for more. Others are in predicaments similar to Nesbitt's.

Yields are expected to be 10 percent to 20 percent less than last year. Though pumpkins are grown throughout the state, losses will be found mostly in the southern counties.

Even farmers like Alan Whipker in Columbus, where pumpkins are healthy, are hoping that what recent rain they've had will continue.

"We had three inches of rain last week. That put the little green pumpkins on, and they're just growing like the devil," Whipker said. "But now we're needing rain again."

Total rainfall from June 15 through August was 2.5 inches less this year than the state's average, according to climatologists at Purdue University. And temperatures climbed past 80 degrees every day from July to mid-September.

Rather than burn up and die, plants affected by little rain and extended periods of heat continue to grow but yield smaller pumpkins. And many farmers and experts worry that puny pumpkins won't satisfy the market.

"Supermarket chains don't like to buy pumpkins much smaller than a basketball," said Dan Egel, a plant pathologist at Purdue. "People might have trouble getting rid of their pumpkins."

Pumpkin production is largely a local industry with little trade between states and regions. Farmers who raise pumpkins and gourds rely heavily on local sales.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, it's too early to predict a widespread failure of the crop.

"Every year you have a problem in some region. It's very rare that you have every region that's going to come up with the perfect crop," said Gary Lucier, an agricultural economist at USDA's Economic Research Service. "That's part of the business of raising pumpkins."

But the business of raising pumpkins has to keep going. Farmers like Nesbitt, whose pumpkin patches are feeling the brunt of the weather, are forced to buy pumpkins from other producers, selling them at roadside stands at marked-up prices.

"I still have got some green pumpkins out there," Nesbitt said. "We have big pumpkins that we use to get the kids out. If they're not there this year, things will be very slow."