Heavy rains hurt pumpkin crop

KOKOMO, Ind. -- For the first time in the nearly 20 years the Exmeyers have sold pumpkins at their farm, they had to turn to others for some of the Halloween staple.\nTheir troubles raising pumpkins this year have been common across Indiana as heavy rains in July caused trouble for the plants.\nAll that rain meant Nancy Exmeyer had to scramble when it came time to open her pumpkin patch the first weekend in October.\n"We had to buy a few pumpkins because ours weren't ready yet," she told the Kokomo Tribune for a story Sunday. "We never buy pumpkins, but we just had to buy a few."\nHer family's farm in western Howard County about 40 miles north of Indianapolis has some good-sized pumpkins, she said, but the weather meant fewer large ones.\n"They came up too late," Exmeyer said. "It takes several days for them to grow. It just broke my heart because they're so pretty.\nThis fall's pumpkins are the second crop planted at the farm this year, as the first plants couldn't emerge because of all the early July rain, she said.\nPumpkin farmers across northern Indiana faced the same kinds of problems caused by the heavy rains, said Dan Egel, an extension plant pathologist at Southwest-Purdue Agricultural Center at Vincennes.\n"They lost a lot of vines and they had a lot of fruit rot because of (the rain)," he said.\nHe said southern Indiana had moderate rain and had some pumpkin vines wilting because of a lack of rain, which also hurt the plants.\nSome growers also had problems this year with viral diseases and a mildew that deformed leaves and the pumpkins, he said.\nDespite those troubles, Egel said most Indiana pumpkin growers he had heard about were harvesting fairly normal crops and that wholesale prices have been good.\nExmeyer usually opens her pumpkin patch the last weekend in September, but delayed the opening by one weekend this year. Despite the later opening, she said most of the customers she has had over the past 18 years have returned.\nShe said her pumpkin business was "just fun to do. Certainly I don't get wealthy at this. I give about as many pumpkins away as I sell. I enjoy that, too"