Dry weather brings pumpkins
Rob Winner — rwinner@shawmedia.com Sisters Addie Osborne (left), 4, and Evie Osborne, 3, of St. Charles look for the perfect pumpkin Friday while visiting Kuipers Family Farm in Maple Park. (Rob Winner ())
Halloween just isn’t the same without an annual pumpkin-carving ritual.
And there should be plenty of future jack-o-lanterns in DeKalb County fields this fall, thanks to some unusual weather.
The summer’s extremely hot, dry weather worried plenty of area farmers, but it didn’t do much to deter this fall’s pumpkin crop.
In fact, this is one of the best pumpkin crops Kevin McArtor has seen in a while.
“I think most people I’ve talked with have had good luck with the pumpkin crop this year because they typically like the dry weather,” said McArtor, co-owner of Jonamac Orchard, Inc., in Malta.
He said pumpkin farmers usually panic when the weather’s too wet because pumpkins are especially susceptible to fungus and mold.
Wade Kuipers, president and owner of Kuipers Family Farm in Maple Park, said he was surprised to have such a good crop of pumpkins this year.
He grows several varieties in 25 acres, including white, blue and pink pumpkins in addition to the traditional orange pumpkins.
Kuipers Family Farm sells pumpkins by the pound, and Kuipers said that might slightly affect profits because the pumpkins this year are generally smaller and weigh a little less.
Joe Wiltse, field manager at Wiltse’s Farm in Maple Park, also noticed that pumpkins in his field are a little smaller this year, but expects a normal to above-normal pumpkin crop yield.
Wiltse said his family has been growing produce since 1955, and said just about every vegetable likes to get some rain about once a week.
Pumpkins are especially sensitive, he said, because it falls under the vine family along with cucumbers.
“We didn’t know what we were going to have,” he said. “We had requests for a couple of big orders [early in the season] that we turned down because we didn’t know what we’d get.”
He said he was surprised with how well his pumpkins turned out despite the hot, dry summer.
State Climatologist Jim Angel said DeKalb County still was in a severe drought by the end of September, which is the second-worst out of four drought categories.
“We had half the rainfall and twice as many warm days,” he said of how this summer’s weather to last year’s
More on : http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2012/09/29/dry-weather-brings-pumpkins/azdi4jw/
The summer’s extremely hot, dry weather worried plenty of area farmers, but it didn’t do much to deter this fall’s pumpkin crop.
In fact, this is one of the best pumpkin crops Kevin McArtor has seen in a while.
“I think most people I’ve talked with have had good luck with the pumpkin crop this year because they typically like the dry weather,” said McArtor, co-owner of Jonamac Orchard, Inc., in Malta.
He said pumpkin farmers usually panic when the weather’s too wet because pumpkins are especially susceptible to fungus and mold.
Wade Kuipers, president and owner of Kuipers Family Farm in Maple Park, said he was surprised to have such a good crop of pumpkins this year.
He grows several varieties in 25 acres, including white, blue and pink pumpkins in addition to the traditional orange pumpkins.
Kuipers Family Farm sells pumpkins by the pound, and Kuipers said that might slightly affect profits because the pumpkins this year are generally smaller and weigh a little less.
Joe Wiltse, field manager at Wiltse’s Farm in Maple Park, also noticed that pumpkins in his field are a little smaller this year, but expects a normal to above-normal pumpkin crop yield.
Wiltse said his family has been growing produce since 1955, and said just about every vegetable likes to get some rain about once a week.
Pumpkins are especially sensitive, he said, because it falls under the vine family along with cucumbers.
“We didn’t know what we were going to have,” he said. “We had requests for a couple of big orders [early in the season] that we turned down because we didn’t know what we’d get.”
He said he was surprised with how well his pumpkins turned out despite the hot, dry summer.
State Climatologist Jim Angel said DeKalb County still was in a severe drought by the end of September, which is the second-worst out of four drought categories.
“We had half the rainfall and twice as many warm days,” he said of how this summer’s weather to last year’s
DeKalb County got a total of 32.14 inches of precipitation from January through September last year, compared with only 18.69 inches of precipitation in the same period this year.
More on : http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2012/09/29/dry-weather-brings-pumpkins/azdi4jw/
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