Some pumpkin farmers in the West, particularly wholesalers in places like Colorado and New Mexico, are feeling the pinching effects of drought. Farmers have had to rely on dwindling water for irrigation while battling wacky weather to get their crops planted on time.
Alan Mazzotti walks through one of his pumpkin fields Oct. 26, 2023, in Hudson, Colo. For some pumpkin growers in states like Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, this year’s pumpkin crop was a reminder of the water challenges hitting agriculture across the Southwest and West as human-caused climate change exacerbates drought and heat extremes. Alan Mazzotti walks through one of his pumpkin fields Oct. 26, 2023, in Hudson, Colo.
“By time it started raining and the rain started to affect our reservoir supplies and everything else, it was just too late for this year,” Mazzotti said.Warming and habitat loss shrink pollinator numbers.
America’s pumpkin powerhouse, Illinois, had a successful harvest on par with the last two years, according to the Illinois Farm Bureau. But this year it was so hot into the harvest season in Texas that farmers had to decide whether to risk cutting pumpkins off the vines at the usual time or wait and miss the start of the fall pumpkin rush.
But at the end of the day, “our real problem is groundwater, ... the lack of deep moisture and the lack of water in the aquifer,” Ness said. That’s a problem that likely won’t go away because aquifers can take hundreds or thousands of years to refill after overuse, and climate change is reducing the very rain and snow needed to recharge them in the arid West.
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