There's trouble brewing in the pumpkin patch across the U.S. Scorching weather and lack of rain this summer wiped out some pumpkin crops from western New York to Illinois, leaving fields dotted with undersized fruit. Other fields got too much rain and their crops rotted.

Bob Gritt looks at part of his withered fall pumpkin crop at his farm near Buffalo, W.Va., on Wednesday, Sept. 26.
(Bob Bird/Associated Press)

"If you've got to have them for your five-year-olds, I certainly would not wait a long time to get them," said Steve Bogash, a Penn State University horticulture educator who works with about 1,600 Pennsylvania vegetable growers.

Pennsylvania, the U.S. No. 2 producer, harvested what Bogash calls a beautiful early crop. But he said the state's midseason pumpkins were a bust and the fate of late-season pumpkins depends on decent weather holding on well into October. A lack of rain in July and August seems to have hurt the most.

Drought yields smaller pumpkins

Hot, dry weather causes pumpkins to produce too many male blossoms and too few female ones. Farmers also can blame drought for scads of small pumpkins as well as lighter weights because of a lack of water.

Standing in a pumpkin field at his Buffalo, W.Va., farm, Bob Gritt lamented the poor colour and small size of the crop surrounding him.

"The colour's not real good on them," he said. "There's not very many big ones in there."

The drought has also hurt growers in western New York, and as much as half of Michigan's crop has been lost because of hot, dry weather in the north, Michigan State University extension educator Ron Goldy estimates. Heavy rain that left standing water in southern Michigan fields caused much of the crop to rot, a problem Goldy said also affected parts of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

Last year, farmers in New Brunswick and Ontario reported lack of sun and heavy rains were responsible for a modest harvest. But in Manitoba, growers enjoyed a bumper season and sent their exports south to help ease a U.S. pumpkin shortage.