Despite a ‘Challenging’ Drought, Pumpkin Farmers See a Solid Crop for the Halloween Season

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Two well-known Morton pumpkin farmers say this year’s drought posed some challenges, but their fields ultimately yielded a solid crop.

The operators of Ackerman Family Farms and the Roth Pumpkin Patch both say consumer demand is approaching its typical October peak, and they expect to stay busy through the end of the month in the Tazewell County village that dubbed itself the Pumpkin Capital of the World.

John Ackerman of Ackerman Family Farms admits the shortage of rainfall made it tougher on pumpkin farmers at the start.

“This year was challenging,” Ackerman said. “It was difficult to get the seeds to germinate this spring, but we finally caught some rains and it really saved the crop. We came out of it really well; we’ve got a good crop this year.”

Does that mean “a good crop” in terms of quality, or quantity?

“Both, actually. We’re sitting really well with plenty of pumpkins, and because it was so dry, there’s very little rot; the quality is extremely good,” Ackerman said. “Pumpkins, they like it to be dry within reason. It was a little unreasonably dry early, but we came out of it very well.”

Nic Roth of the Roth Pumpkin Patch says their pumpkin production also came out better than he first anticipated.

“Surprisingly, we have a fair amount of pumpkins in our field. The drought definitely had an impact that there’s maybe not as many out in the field. Usually, we kind of just see the ground littered with pumpkins,” Roth said.

“But as dry as it was, we had trouble getting the seeds themselves or the plants themselves to emerge. With it being so dry, they sat in the ground, I think, for over a week before we finally had pumpkin plants emerging. Then after that, it seemed like we just couldn’t get the rain. They hung on; the plants themselves I think are thinner as a whole.”

Roth says he saw a range in growth among different types of pumpkins.

“Some of the varieties maybe didn’t get quite as big as they normally would,” he said. “So, there’s some specialty varieties they were just a little bit smaller. Our jack-o-lantern varieties, they surprisingly did fairly well; we still have some nice big jack-o-lanterns that we’re picking that are nice carving pumpkins. But it’s the specialty types that take the biggest hit.”

Source: nprillinois.org