Plethora of pumpkins, scarcity of corn

This summer’s drought may make some autumn decoration and edible favorites scarce this year.

Indian corn and broom corn may be hard to find because the crop did not receive the rain it needed in June, July, and August.

Randy and Christine Gaitsch, owners of Randy’s Vegetable and Farmstand in Sleepy Hollow, are not expecting an abundance of their decorative corns.

“By no means will it be a bumper crop for broom corn and Indian corn,” Christine Gaitsch said. “Pumpkins, squash and gourds are in good shape because it wasn’t a wet year. They like it more on the dry side.”

During October, the couple’s Randall Road farmstand is an autumn and Halloween decoration center, filled with pumpkins, gourds, decorative corn and corn stalks along with fruits and vegetables.

In the next few weeks, they will try to get their hands on some broom corn and Indian corn to sell, but if other farmers suffered the same loss at the hands of Mother Nature the perennial favorites may be hard to find.

“Our (edible) corn crop did fine,” Christine said. “However, we lost some beans and our cabbage didn’t look at its best.”

Marengo farmer Tim Horcher of T&H Farm LTD hasn’t looked closely look at his decorative or edible corn crop, but at first glance, the sun and heat burned much of it in the field.

“Some of the farm, I irrigate. That yield will be the same,” he said. “But the part I didn’t irrigate looks pretty bad. In a good year, I can get 300 bushels of corn for every acre. This year, I’ll be lucky if I get 50 bushels an acre.”

He will look at the other vegetables, such as tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and beans, he grows to see what he can salvage, but he has little hope for the dry corn.

“I won’t know until I get on my combine in November to see how bad the corn really is, but I’m not expecting much,” he said.

Both Christine Gaitsch and Horcher said they do not expect raise prices this year. Next year may be another story, Horcher said.