UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- It may sound funny, but a jack-o-lantern pumpkin without a stem is not much good at Halloween, and a fungus caused by the wettest of all summers has resulted in thousands of stemless pumpkins on the market in Pennsylvania this month, according to an expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

"All the rain and cool weather during the last few months provided ideal conditions in many areas of the state for powdery and downy mildew and diseases that affected pumpkins," says Mike Orzolek, professor of vegetable crops. "One common disease, phytopthora, a fungal disease sometimes called water mold, turns leaves brown and rots the pumpkins. However, powdery mildew will affect not only leaves but often the stem, causing the stems to turn brown and come off the pumpkins when they are picked."

As a result, the jack-o-lantern pumpkins don't have that nifty natural handle that allows buyers to lift the lid on their carved holiday works of vegetable art. And anything that affects Pennsylvania pumpkins is a big deal. The state is second only to Illinois in pumpkin cultivation, Orzolek says, with 8,000 acres dedicated to growing the giant orange squash.

But for growing jack-o-lantern or face pumpkins -- the ones so treasured at Halloween -- the Keystone state ranks first, Orzolek points out. Illinois growers specialize in processing pumpkins for pumpkin pie filling. Several pumpkin-processing plants remain in that state; they all have moved out of Pennsylvania. You can use a jack-o-lantern pumpkin for a pie, but the flesh might be stringy and not make pie filling that tastes as good as a processing pumpkin.

Pennsylvania's intensive pumpkin cultivation makes it more susceptible to diseases affecting the Halloween favorites. "Some growers don't rotate their fields the way they should, with pumpkins growing in the same fields year after year, and residual amounts of fungal diseases survive in the soil," Orzolek explains. "So when we have an exceptionally wet year such as this one, pumpkin harvests are susceptible to outbreaks."

But there may have been a silver lining in the storms that caused the record rainfall across much of the state this year, if you like your pumpkins big. "With all the moisture, if a grower kept up with his fungicide program, it is likely that more big pumpkins were harvested this year, with fewer pumpkins overall," Orzolek says. "We had cold, wet weather at the time when most pumpkins are pollinated, and that affected the harvest. I've seen fields that look beautiful until you get close enough to see they are all leaves with very few pumpkins. To be sure, this year will not yield a bumper crop."

Orzolek expects the reduced harvest to boost the price of pumpkins slightly over last year, but he points out that there is a lot of variability across the state in weather, soil drainage and planting periods, so price differences might not be too noticeable. "Some growers with well-drained soils reported that their pumpkin harvests exceeded expectations," he says, "while others had a tough growing season, with some even experiencing crop damage from hail storms in late summer, so it is difficult to predict prices."

But one thing is for sure. If you can put up with a pumpkin without a stem, you should have a good selection to choose from.

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EDITORS: Contact Mike Orzolek at 814-863-2251 or by e-mail at mdo1@psu.edu.

Writer/Editor: Jeff Mulhollem Office 814-863-2719 FAX 814-863-9877