‘96 Pumpkin Crop Bumpy, Not Bumper

With their normally smooth, orange skin pockmarked by large bumps, the sugar pie pumpkins looked like they could have been grown on Mars.

For the preschool children who roamed Tierra Rejada Ranch’s pumpkin patch Wednesday morning to pick their favorite gourd, that was cool.

But for ranch manager Rick Brecunier, the bumpy gourds are a sign that the seasonal crop wasn’t so good.

“The plants didn’t do well this year,” Brecunier said. “So we have a lot of extraterrestrial pumpkins. It happens periodically, but I haven’t seen it quite like this before.”

The pumpkins were affected by mosaic, a plant virus that is responsible for reduced sizes and yields, Brecunier said. “But it’s something unique and a lot of people get excited about them for carving,” he added.

Other pumpkin growers throughout Ventura County also reported a less-than-perfect season. Excessive heat, some said, has reduced the crop for a bunch of local farmers.

But as temporary pumpkin patches sprout along the county’s roads from the Oxnard Plain to the inland valleys, shoppers looking for the perfect jack-o’-lantern will find plenty of supply and prices virtually unchanged from last year.

A large share of the pumpkins sold locally are grown in the San Joaquin Valley or farther afield. At the well-stocked pumpkin patch in the Thousand Oaks Auto Mall, about half of the nearly 5,000 pumpkins on display--which range from $2 to $60 for gourds from two to 150 pounds--are locally grown. The others come from Oregon, said Will Miller, owner of an operation that sells pumpkins, Halloween costumes and Christmas trees at 15 locations from Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley to Las Vegas.

“The only difference is the thickness of the skin,” Miller said. “The Oregon skin is a little heartier. [In Ventura County] it is much hotter, and the pumpkins get beat by the sun. There are pros and cons to both. We have a bigger expense getting the ones down from Oregon. We like to mix it up a little.”

By comparison to the county’s multimillion-dollar crops of avocados, strawberries and lemons, the pumpkin harvest--which brought in about $480,000 in 1995--is small. Only about 160 acres in the county were planted with pumpkins in 1995. Figures for the 1996 crop won’t be available until next year.

But pumpkins, which require little moisture and maintenance, are suitable for small farmers who can sell the product directly out of their fields, according to Ben Faber, a University of California farm advisor for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

“It’s a crop that you can grow with little water,” Faber said. “People turn to it when their access to water is limited. It can be played by small players. You can still make several thousand dollars an acre. That’s a relatively good return.”

For those who market the orange gourds to wholesalers, sales are fairly predictable. Large buyers, such as Miller, usually place orders in February or March.

“Based on past sales history, we decide how big an order to place,” Miller said. “Sales have been consistent. There hasn’t been any growth to talk about.”

And with the orders firmed up early in the year, growers, who do not usually plant until late May, have plenty of time to decide how many pumpkins they should grow.

While sales will surge between now and the end of the month, not every pumpkin will be gone by Halloween. In fact, if you plan to turn them into pie or soup for the holidays, you may be better off waiting until Nov. 1, when pumpkin prices are likely to drop.

“We’ll be open until Nov. 3 this year,” Miller said. “We usually do quite a bit of business between Nov. 1 and Nov. 3.”

And the leftovers won’t go to waste. After Nov. 3, when all the spooky lanterns are likely to be smashed to gooey bits, Miller and area growers plan to ship most of what’s left to cattle ranchers to use as feed.