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

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

Farmers in several provinces say unusually intense or poorly timed weather has damaged crops, accelerated growing seasons and made it increasingly difficult to predict what their fields will look like by Thanksgiving and Halloween.

In Ontario, Jordan Mackay saw firsthand how quickly a promising growing season could change.

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

On Aug. 8, a severe hailstorm tore through his family’s Willowtree Farm in Port Perry, Ont., destroying more than 300 acres of crops in roughly 10 minutes.

“We’ve had hail before, but not wiping out all the crops to that devastating effect.”

The family’s other farms escaped the hail, but another weather problem soon emerged.

After what Mackay described as a good start to the growing season, heavy rainfall through August began taking a toll on pumpkins at the family’s Oshawa-area farm.

When pumpkin vines and roots remain wet, Mackay said they can develop fungal diseases that damage the plants and interfere with their growth. Persistently wet ground can also cause pumpkins themselves to rot.

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

Some pumpkins have already started rotting “due to the heavy rains we’ve had over the last number of weeks.”

Mackay said the intensity of some recent weather events and how localized they can be has made farming particularly challenging.

“It’s been a very tough season for weather and it’s very isolated storms,” he said.

The hailstorm that hit his Port Perry farm, for example, affected an area spanning only a few country blocks.

Similar uncertainty is playing out 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 developing later and in smaller numbers than she would normally expect.

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“The ones I have are beautiful. But again, there’s not as many,” she told Global News.

Warner said heavy rain could have affected pollination at a crucial point in the growing season. She experienced similar conditions last year, when pumpkins continued ripening well beyond their usual selling window.

“Last year, my field was orange in November,” she said, noting that pumpkins “don’t sell in November.”

Warner’s farm escaped the flooding and hail that affected some other parts of Niagara this year, leaving her hopeful that her crop can still catch up.

For farmers dealing with increasingly unpredictable conditions, Warner said there is only so much they can control.

“We’re at the mercy of Mother Nature,” she said.

Warner said recent weather patterns could change the way farmers irrigate and adjust by changing planting dates, irrigating during dry periods and staggering plantings to reduce the risk of losing an entire crop at once.

The effects of this year’s weather extend beyond Ontario.

In British Columbia’s Okanagan region, extreme heat and drought have instead pushed some pumpkins through their growing cycle much faster than usual.

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

“This year, because of the heat that we’ve had, it’s been pretty consistent, you know, day and then into the evening, so a lot of the pumpkins have been growing really well,” farm owner Ron McMillan said.

Some pumpkins that would typically take about 90 days to grow reached maturity in roughly 45 days.

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

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

Black Fox Farm and Distillery outside Saskatoon stopped growing pumpkins last year after dealing with unpredictable yields.

“One year we got completely frozen out, had no pumpkins at all,” co-founder John Cote said.

The uncertainty can be particularly costly for farms that rely on pumpkin patches as fall attractions because operators must prepare for visitors long before knowing exactly how the crop will turn out.

In Alberta, an unusually wet summer has also created problems for pumpkin growers, with some farms considering bringing in pumpkins from elsewhere as their local crops struggle.

“This has been a really rough year for us,” explains Kate de Windt, co-owner of Somerset Farms in Alberta’s Parkland County.

“Our crops are about a month behind, and as most people in Alberta know, frost can come very easy and early,” de Windt added.

Still, the conditions aren’t bad everywhere, underscoring just how localized and unpredictable the growing season has become.

At Springridge Farm in Ontario, a cooler, wet spring delayed planting slightly, but heat and rain later in the season ultimately helped the crop.

“Lots of pumpkins and good size due to all the rain,” farmer John Hughes told Global News in an email.

Mackay’s family also expects to have enough pumpkins for customers this fall. Because the family grows across three different locations and produces more pumpkins than it needs, Mackay said visitors should see little difference at its farms despite the losses.

“We’ll have a reduced pumpkin crop at Pingle’s, but still lots for pick-your-own and for customers purchasing directly from the farm,” he said.

The experiences suggest Canadians shouldn’t necessarily expect a widespread pumpkin shortage this fall. Instead, growers say the bigger challenge is not knowing what the next severe weather event could mean for their crops.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) said supporting local agriculture remains important as farmers navigate those conditions.

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

“This is why it is so incredibly important that we protect our farmland and our ability to grow and raise as much food as we possibly can right here at home.”