Fitzpatrick consumers want specialty pumpkins: Completes 18 Year Tenure as Farm Bureau Director
By | Jill Sell FREE LANCE WRITER KENT-RAVENNA RECORD COURIER
GROWERS WANT HEALTHier CROPS
Above: Consumer interest in specialty pumpkins continues to grow, especially in Ohio, where gourds in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes and knobby textures are highly sought after.
YOU CAN excuse Roy Patterson, owner of three or four years, 6,000 to 7,000 acres of Darr Farms in Newcomersville, if he refrains from decorating his own home with pumpkins for Halloween. Last year, Patterson planted 325 acres of jack-o-lantern type pumpkins and picked 12 million pounds, giving him about a 20-ton-to-theacre yield. “Yes, we were tired,” joked Patterson. “But my sister, who works on the farm three days a week, brought some pumpkins to put around the house.”
pumpkins were planted. But now there seems to be a significant drop to 3,500 to 4,000 acres – at least on paper and by government calculations. “It’s kind of a mystery. We don’t know why. It’s important for farmers to get in that last bang for their buck before winter. I don’t really see the drop, but it shows up in the numbers,” said Jasinski, adding that almost all pumpkins grown in Ohio are fresh pumpkins used for decorations, not processing ones earmarked for cooking and baking.
Patterson is one of the major pumpkin wholesale farmers who help Ohio traditionally rank among the top five states for pumpkin yield. Professor (Although unsubstantiated, there is also talk Jim Jasinski is the integrated pest management among seed salesmen that some larger sellers of program coordinator for the Ohio State University pumpkins in the state are importing the product Extension in Urbana. Jasinski said for the past from Canada, which would affect Ohio farmers.)
18 | FALL 2020
