                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, October 15, 1995               TAG: 9510160193
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Long  :  154 lines

NOT-SO-GREAT PUMPKINS THE CROP HAS BEEN DAMAGED BY HEAT, DROUGHT AND DRENCHING RAINS. THE RESULT: SMALLER, DULLER FRUIT AND HIGHER PRICES.

It's a frightening Halloween image: pale, misshapen pumpkins rotting on the vines of local pumpkin patches.

A hot, dry summer and a wet fall have combined to deliver more tricks than treats to local pumpkin growers, who estimate they've lost from 25 to 75 percent of their crops.

``It's been quite hard,'' said Richard Rhodes, Virginia Tech agriculture extension agent in Chesapeake. ``We're just not getting the yields this year.''

In fact, one Virginia Beach farm with a long tradition of hayrides and pumpkin-picking may cancel Halloween altogether.

``We probably won't have any this year,'' said John G. Williams Jr. of Williams Farm in Bayside. ``If we get rain this weekend like we're supposed to, that will finish them off.''

But such nightmarish tales should not scare off little ghosts and goblins. They still can find an ample supply of pumpkins in the region. The fruit just might be a little smaller, not quite as orange, and a bit more pricey.

Or you may not get one that was locally grown.

Hunt Club Farm Market on London Bridge Road in Virginia Beach, which got out of the volatile pumpkin-growing business years ago, had to go to Ohio and Pennsylvania for its pumpkins this year. The market usually buys locally.

Some of the farms that, each fall, supply local produce stands, like Henley's in Pungo and Powell's on Battlefield Boulevard, have had to keep all their pumpkins for their own retail businesses.

``We don't have any extra to wholesale like we had hoped,'' said William Powell. ``But we'll have an adequate supply for our demand.

``I'm not going to say that they're the best pumpkins we've ever grown. We're just blessed to have some pumpkins.''

The pumpkin crop failure is not limited to Hampton Roads. The entire East Coast and Midwest have been hit particularly hard.

``In a normal year, there are regions that have some problems,'' said Ray Waterman, president of the New York-based World Pumpkin Confederation. ``But this year it's much more widespread.''

Local growers have had callers desperate for pumpkins from as far as Florida and Oklahoma City. A Northern Neck distributor recently dispatched 50 tractor-trailers across the region in search of pumpkins.

Normally, about three pumpkins are grown per child nationwide and this year there's about one pumpkin per child, the World Pumpkin Confederation says.

Even Charlie Brown's fabled Great Pumpkin won't be rising from the pumpkin patch as the large varieties are now just medium size. Henley's wondrous 100-pound pumpkins of autumns past are about 40 pounds this year.

Growers and agriculture experts primarily blame the record heat and drought this summer.

The hot, dry conditions hindered vine growth on pumpkin plants. And many of the flowers that did bloom on those limited vines dropped off before they could produce fruit.

Not only did the weather reduce yields, it also inhibited growth. Pumpkins are over 90 percent water, Rhodes said, ``so when it lacks water, you get malformed fruit, distorted shapes and small sizes.''

Now the fall rains won't allow the less-mature pumpkins to harden so they're literally melting into orange puddles.

It all boils down to one thing: shop early.

``If you want a pumpkin for Halloween you better get it now,'' said Clifton Slade, agriculture extension agent in Suffolk. ``The good ones, the pretty round ones with nice color are going fast.''