Extreme drought in southern Ohio impacting pumpkin size

MOUNT STERLING, Ohio (WCMH) -- Last week, 22 counties were declared natural disaster areas due to the prolonged drought categorized as extreme or exceptional, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency.

Farmers and commercial growers in the driest areas in southern Ohio are working long hours to salvage withered crops.

George Lohstroh farms 125 acres along the Madison-Pickaway County border near Mount Sterling. The pumpkin patch at Lohstroh Family Farms spans 14 acres, and he said this is the worst drought in his 40 years of farming.

"You can see we have a pretty good crop now, but it's just taken a tremendous amount of extra effort--a lot of diesel fuel, gasoline and time." The worst drought in southeastern Ohio since 1988 stresses the plants that support pumpkins. Too little moisture and the fruit fails to mature.

Lohstroh explained the importance of watering the leaves that absorb nourishing sunlight and also protect the pumpkins from sunburn damage. Leaves that received insufficient moisture have been fried, and have "dropped or drooped down, and the sun did wind up burning them."

He draws water from a well that taps into nearby Darby Creek and has been irrigating the crops all summer as the drought worsened.

The cornfield beyond his pumpkin patch has turned brown like November, and will harvested weeks earlier than usual, along with soybeans that are expected to produce tiny beans.

A smaller number of corn kernels and stunted ear size are signs of drought stress. "Yields probably drop by 25 percent, maybe more than that," which affects a farmer's income, Lohstroh said.

"Each year brings challenges," said Cristin Lohstroh, George's daughter, who helps manage the family farm. "This year just happens to be no rainfall. So we're able to mitigate some of that through hard work and effort into irrigating our crops," she said.

Fortunately, the hard work has paid off, leaving a respectable patch of pumpkins, with 40 varieties on display on the family farm along Route 56 in eastern Madison County.

"We here are blessed to be able to put the water on the crop and have a good crop of pumpkins. It's just been a lot of late nights and no suppers ... when you have to keep the irrigation rolling."