Although October is still many months away, the ongoing drought may put a damper on the pumpkin yield this fall. Pumpkins are one of many crops suffering from the lack of moisture across the Tri-States.
Mike Roegge at Mill Creek Farms in Quincy said more than half of his pumpkin crops have already been planted, but continued dry weather could prevent more from being put in the ground. “You got to have pumpkins in the ground about this time of year in order to get them to mature before October first gets here, and that’s our pumpkin season which begins at the end of September. So, we’re hoping for rain to get the other half of our pumpkins planted.”
Roegge added: “This is the first time ever we’ve had to apply irrigation to get them to germinate. The soil is just so dry, there’s no moisture available so we had to supplement the pumpkin seed with water in order to get it to germinate which is just unreal for this time of year.”
Roegge is also irrigating the onions, potatoes, cauliflower and cucumbers.
