Why Utah's pumpkin harvest came in short this year
Utah's 2026 pumpkin crop came in well below last year's. Growers we buy from across northern Utah told us to expect between a fifth and a half of last season's yield, and Beck Family Farms in Centerfield told Fox 13 it expects about 600 tons against a normal 3,000. The main cause was heat: summer blossoms failed to set fruit, heat and smoke kept bees from pollinating them, and the whole state was in drought.
Mountain Pumpkins4 min read
We buy pumpkins from growers across northern Utah for the porch displays we install, so September is when we are on the phone with them and out in their fields. This year the conversation was the same almost everywhere. The most hopeful growers expected about half of last year's crop. The least hopeful expected closer to a fifth.
Those figures are what growers told us while we were buying for the season, not a measured survey, and they varied a lot from farm to farm. Sources for everything else on this page are listed at the foot.
01The biggest grower on the record
The largest grower to speak publicly is Beck Family Farms in Centerfield, which supplies grocers in Utah and several neighboring states. Owner David Beck told Fox 13 the farm normally grows about 3,000 tons of pumpkins a year and expects about 600 this year, an 80 percent drop. That matches the bottom of the range we heard, and it comes from Sanpete County, well south of the Wasatch Front, so this was not one bad valley.
Beck laid the blame on record heat, which he said kept the summer blossoms from setting fruit, and on conditions that were too hot and too smoky for the bees. He also told Fox 13 that a hailstorm in Delta had ruined about 250 of the 300 tons the farm had lined up there.
02Why heat stops a pumpkin crop
Every pumpkin starts as a female flower that has to be pollinated, and the window is short. Utah State University Extension notes that for most crops pollination has to happen on the day the flower opens, because the pollen, the flower's receptiveness and its pull on bees all last only that day. Miss that day and the flower does not become a pumpkin.
Heat closes that window from both sides. Purdue University Extension describes high temperatures killing female pumpkin flowers while they are still buds, and interfering with pollen so badly that a flower can open, be pollinated and still not set fruit. The bees that do the pollinating had the same heat to deal with, plus smoke. Beck put it in one line: it was "too hot for the bees, too smoky for the bees."
03The year around it
None of this landed in an ordinary year. Utah had its warmest winter since federal statewide records began in 1895, according to National Centers for Environmental Information data reported by the Daily Herald, and Salt Lake City reached 109 degrees on July 12, an all-time record high according to the National Weather Service. By mid-September the Utah Division of Water Resources was reporting the entire state in some form of drought, with reservoirs about half full, below normal and below last year.
Pumpkins were not the only crop to suffer. Utah's tree fruit took an April freeze, and the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food told the Daily Herald that some fruit growers reported losing nearly their whole crop and others around three quarters of it. That is a separate story from pumpkins, but it is the same year.
04If you are heading to a patch this fall
Go earlier rather than later. A Beck Family Farms employee told Fox 13 that shoppers may find very few pumpkins left late in the season. With less fruit on the vines, the first weeks of October are a safer bet than Halloween weekend.
Call before a long drive. A farm that runs short may change its hours. Our directory of every confirmed patch and corn maze north of Nephi lists each farm's own phone number and website, so you can check on the day you go.
The big ones go first. Large pumpkins are the scarce part of any crop and they sell early, which is the heart of our guide to buying pumpkins in bulk. In a short year that is more true, not less.
Look after the ones you get. A pumpkin that is harder to replace is worth keeping. Most of what shortens its life is standing water and cold concrete, which is covered in how to keep porch pumpkins from rotting.
05What we changed
Our Grand designs have always included 50 pound statement pumpkins. This year the package descriptions say supplies allowing, because some growers simply do not have them in the numbers they did last year. We would rather say that up front than substitute quietly on the day.