Drought in Alabama could impact Halloween pumpkins and Christmas trees
By Lisa Crane
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HAYDEN, Alabama (WVTM) — Parts of Alabama are experiencing extreme drought conditions right now. The Forestry Commission has put the entire state under a fire danger advisory. And the lack of rain is impacting many crops that could affect our fall and winter holidays.
At The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, they grow some of their pumpkins; many of the small pie pumpkins came from their own fields. But because of a lack of rain, most are from farms in other states.
For a day at the pumpkin patch, this dry, warm weather is perfect, but it’s not so great for the pumpkin growing season.
Pumpkin Patch owner Julie Swann said, “We have not had rain, probably for us it’s been since August. And then prior to that, it was probably the good rains that we had, you know, April, maybe some of June.”
The Great Pumpkin Patch is parched, and the drought does have an impact on the gourds they grow there.
“It doesn’t necessarily affect the size simply because pumpkins take so long to produce. But it does the quantity, it affects that, you don’t have as many, you know, to produce as far as vines won’t produce as much without the rain,” Swann said.
So the owners have to reach out to farmers in Tennessee and Michigan and buy their pumpkins to sell in Hayden. And Halloween may not be the only holiday impacted by the drought. Paul Beavers at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm in Trafford said the lack of rain is particularly hard on his youngest, smallest trees.
“If it continues all the way through winter, it might kill some of my smaller trees. Hopefully, it’ll stop sometime in the next month or two,” Beavers said.
A lack of rain means the trees will just stop growing, so the drought could impact the size of your Christmas tree. But the trees tagged for sale are five years old or more, so problems might not be realized till Christmas of 2030.
“We’re still going to have over 3000 trees ready to sell this year,” Beavers said.
When the owners of the pumpkin patch have to buy more pumpkins from out-of-state farms, their costs increase, but they say this year, they are not raising prices for customers.
They’ll have to re-evaluate that next fall.
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