Anyone wanting a pumpkin for Halloween shouldn’t have too much trouble finding one, but the selection probably won’t be as great as it has been in years passed. Hot weather has reduced the size of the crops in Missouri and other states, and pumpkin grower Jo Hackman of Hartsburg – in Mid-Missouri – says her yield is down by about 60-percent and that cuts several hundred pumpkins from the total. Hackman says the smaller crops mean pumpkin growers will pick some of the smaller pumpkins that would, under normal circumstances, be cast aside in favor of the plumper pumpkins.
