There’s a Pumpkin Fungus Among Us
It’s threatening the supply of the iconic fall gourds, along with poor weather and shipping issues.
If you’ve had trouble finding a pumpkin to plant on your doorstep just in time for spooky season, chances are you’re not alone.
Chatter around pumpkin shortages has been circulating in recent weeks. The main culprit of such a crisis? Unfavorable weather conditions, shipping issues and a sprouting fungus across some of the US’s biggest pumpkin-producing states.
California is one of those places. Growers have reported fewer varieties and smaller yields due to an ongoing drought plaguing the state. Others have said water is so scarce they’ve only been able to grow half of their normal quota. In the Sacramento Valley, one farmer told a news station that growers in the region had their pumpkins destroyed by a virus. Some throughout the state have even decided they were better off sourcing their pumpkins from places such as Oregon, which is typically too wet but experienced an ideal growing season that was much drier than average this year.
Similarly, retailers in northeast Kansas have sourced from Nebraska because this year’s rainy and hot weather has quashed pumpkin harvests, while North Carolina growers said their wet spring and summer have cut their harvest in almost half.
Pumpkin Patch Fundraisers Inc., one shipping company that sends millions of pumpkins to more than 40 states across the country, told a local news outlet that the business has been dealing with a shortage of truckers. The owner said that, since September 15, it has been consistently behind by 40 to 50 loads.
Between shipping issues, having to source a crop from farther distances and overall fewer pumpkins being grown, it would be reasonable to expect to buy this year’s gourds at a premium.
The USDA has already captured prices shooting up across the country. Data from the agency, documenting the second week of September, shows that jack-o’-lantern pumpkins (called Howden pumpkins) sold at $5.17, seven percent more compared to the same time in 2020, when the same type of pumpkin cost $4.83.
In Illinois, which produces anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of the country’s pumpkins, a pesky fungus decimating its patches could have one of the largest impacts.
The fungus, identified as phytophthora capsici, was first reported this summer. This year is said to be the third time in 30 years that it’s striking down patches. Heavy rain and higher-than-usual temperatures across west-central Illinois were the perfect conditions for it to re-emerge. Some farmers have attributed it to losing around 25 to 30 percent of their yield.
However, the state’s shortage is expected to affect canned pumpkin products more than the fall gourds in patches that are primed for picking. Illinois’s pumpkin crop is reported to represent more than 82 percent of canned products sold around the world.
So, if you haven’t stocked up on that filling for your Thanksgiving pie, it might be wise to put that at the top of your to-do list.
Follow us
Republish!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
-
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
-
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
-
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
-
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
-
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
-
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
-
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].There’s a Pumpkin Fungus Among Us
by Lindsay Campbell, Modern Farmer
October 21, 2021
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreExplore other topics
Share With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
Submit
I predict that this pumpkin shortage will be resolved on November 1st.