Caption: PumpkinGreat pumpkins Yes the Great Pumpkin will visit Michigan this year, but he'll be smaller and may have a rotten bottom. It's not a jolly year for jack-o'-lanterns in the state, due mainly to the heavy rains of September that farm experts say ruined 25 percent or more of Michigan's pumpkin crop. Um;ess tje foe;d os drained well by underground tile, as in the Vynckes in Shelby Township, the pumpkins can rot before they're picked. "I've been in fields where the pumpkins are literally melting away," Paul Marks, co-operative extension agent for Monroe County, said last week. "You stand about 10 feet away and they look fine, but try to pick one up and it just falls apart." Michigan has 1,153 acres in commercial pumpkin production on 345 farms, mainly in the southeastern Lower Peninsula, according to the state-federal crop reporting service in Lansing. Pumpkins are grown mainly as a seasonal novelty item and are not a major Michigan cash crop, although the state is amont the nation's top 10 in pumpkins production, said Bernard Zandstra, a horticulture professor and vegetable specialist at Michigan State University. Marks said farmers probably will pick and sell pumpkins this fall that they would have considered too small in past years, to salvage as much of their crop as possible. Retail prices will range from $2 to $3 per pumpkin, slightly higher than last year because of the lost crop, he said. "Your kids and mine will all survive, if they have to, without a jack-o'-lantern," Marks said.
The front and back of this photograph are pictured below:
