Pumpkin farms ‘at the mercy of Mother Nature’ after extreme weather in Canada – National

From damaging hail to torrential rain, drought and extreme heat, severe weather is taking a toll on pumpkin farms across Canada as growers prepare for a busy fall season.

Farmers in several provinces say unusually intense or untimely weather has damaged crops, speeding up the growing season and making it increasingly difficult to predict what their fields will look like on Thanksgiving and Halloween.

In Ontario, Jordan Mackay saw firsthand how quickly promising growing seasons can change.

“We lost pumpkins, tomatoes and a lot of strawberries,” Mackay told Global News, whose family is also involved in Pingle’s Farm Market and Nature’s Bounty Farm.

On August 8, a severe ice storm hit his family’s Willowtree Farm in Port Perry, Ontario, destroying more than 300 hectares of crops in about 10 minutes.

“We’ve had hail before, but it didn’t destroy all the crops to cause such bad effects.”

Another family farm escaped the hail, but other weather problems soon emerged.

After what Mackay described as a good start to the growing season, heavy rainfall throughout August started to take its toll on the pumpkins on the family farm in the Oshawa area.

If pumpkin vines and roots remain wet, Mackay said fungal diseases can develop that damage the plant and disrupt its growth. Constantly wet soil can also cause pumpkins to rot.

“I was just walking around the patch yesterday, and we saw a lot of powdery mildew,” he said.

Some of the pumpkins had started to rot “due to the heavy rain we’ve had over the last few weeks.”

Mackay said the intensity of some recent weather events and how localized they have been has made farming very challenging.

“This has been a very difficult season in terms of weather and the storms have been very isolated,” he said.

The ice storm that hit his Port Perry ranch, for example, affected an area that covered just a few blocks of the country.

Similar uncertainty also exists in the Niagara Region.

Donna Warner, who has been farming for about 40 years and owns Warner Ranch and Pumpkin Farm with her husband in Niagara Falls, said this year’s pumpkins are growing more slowly and in smaller quantities than she usually expects.

“The ones I have are very beautiful. But then again, there aren’t that many of them,” he told Global News.

Warner said heavy rains can affect pollination at a key point in the growing season. He experienced similar conditions last year, when pumpkins continued to ripen beyond the usual sales limit.

“Last year, my fields were orange in November,” he said, noting that pumpkins “don’t sell in November.”

Warner’s farm was spared the flooding and hail that hit several other areas of Niagara this year, so he hopes his crop can still catch up.

For farmers facing increasingly unpredictable conditions, Warner said there is little they can control.

“We are under the rule of Mother Nature,” he said.

Warner said current weather patterns may change how farmers irrigate and adapt by changing planting dates, irrigating during dry seasons, and phasing planting to reduce the risk of losing the entire crop at once.

This year’s weather impacts aren’t unique to Ontario.

In the Okanagan region of British Columbia, extreme heat and drought are actually pushing some pumpkins through their growth cycle much faster than usual.

At McMillan Farms in Kelowna, some pumpkins were ready about two to three weeks ahead of schedule.

“This year, because of the hot weather we’ve had, the weather has been pretty consistent, day and night, so a lot of the pumpkins are growing really well,” said farm owner Ron McMillan.

Some pumpkins that normally take about 90 days to grow reach maturity in about 45 days.

“When you have heat stress and drought, it tends to encourage plants to mature more quickly,” says Deborah Buszard of the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.

And on the Prairies, weather uncertainty also complicates the traditional fall season.

Black Fox Farms and Distillery outside Saskatoon stopped growing pumpkins last year after facing unpredictable yields.

“One year we were really cold, didn’t have any pumpkins at all,” said co-founder John Cote.

This uncertainty can be especially detrimental for farms that rely on pumpkin patches as fall attractions because operators must prepare for visitors long before knowing for sure how the crop will fare.

In Alberta, a very wet summer also caused problems for pumpkin farmers, with some farms considering bringing in pumpkins from elsewhere because their local crops were struggling.

“This has been a very difficult year for us,” explains Kate de Windt, one of the owners Somerset Farm in Parkland County, Alberta.

“Our harvest is about a month late, and as most people in Alberta know, frost can happen very easily and early,” de Windt added.

However, conditions are not bad everywhere, which shows how localized and unpredictable the current growing season is.

At Springridge Farm in Ontario, a cooler and wetter spring delayed planting a bit, but heat and rain late in the season ultimately helped the harvest.

“The pumpkins are plentiful and of good size because of the rain,” farmer John Hughes told Global News in an email.

The Mackays also hope to have enough pumpkins for customers this fall. Because the family grows pumpkins in three different locations and produces more pumpkins than needed, Mackay said visitors won’t notice much difference on their farm despite the losses.

“We will be reducing the pumpkin harvest at Pingle’s, but there will still be plenty of pumpkins to pick for yourself and for customers buying directly from the farm,” he said.

The experience suggests that Canadians should not expect widespread pumpkin shortages this fall. Farmers, on the other hand, say the bigger challenge is not knowing what impact the next severe weather will have on their crops.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) says supporting local agriculture remains important as farmers face these conditions.

“Whether you’re shopping at a grocery store, farmer’s market or farm stand, take a closer look at where your food comes from. You might be surprised by how diverse the foods grown in Ontario are,” OFA’s Tracey Arts said in a statement.

“This is why it is so important for us to protect farmland and our ability to grow and produce as much food as possible right here at home.”