Frightening times for UK pumpkin growers Lights out: jack o" lanterns could be in short supply Forget ghouls, witches and things that go bump in the night. This Halloween the scariest prospect of all is a dearth of bumper-sized pumpkins. Ghastly summers across the globe have blighted fields with, variously, too much or too little rain, sun and warmth. This has stunted production and raised prices across a range of foodstuffs, from grain - and, hence, meat from the livestock that feeds of it - through to vegetables, fruit and wine. Pumpkins, according to some farmers, sit in exactly the same basket. Production at some British farms is down by between a fifth and a half; others are able to harvest only unsellable green fruits. For others the problem is size: smaller pumpkins are far more plentiful than their more profitable big brothers. "Volume is consistent, value lower," says Jon Barfoot, commercial director at Barfoots of Botley, the UK-based growers and packers. Reduced crops and small fruits are only part of the industry's gloom. Keeping supermarkets happy is the most important thing they will do - or fail to do - all year. "You can be a major hero to retailers but if you get Halloween wrong they will never, never forgive you," says Mr Barfoot. It's so emotive. It is also hard work, involving hand picking (no one invests in machinery used for such a short period) and nightmarish logistics. Yet for all that, careers can be ruined by a retailer chief executive "picking up the batphone to his buyer and saying: "Why are the pumpkins rubbish?"" Indeed, rather like the ghouls and witches, pumpkin season is "something we all dread," he sighs. It's a very political and uncomfortable time and we cannot wait till it's finished. David Bowman, Europe's biggest supplier, told trade publication Fresh Produce Journal that his crop was down by a fifth this year and that some smaller growers had lost "everything." At Lyburn Farm in Wiltshire, Jono Smales believes he has ended up with half his usual yield. "The crop is three weeks late because of the terrible weather we had in June and July," he says. A lot of the pumpkins are still green. He estimates that just under a third of his crop has failed to ripen in time, a further 20 per cent was lost to waterlogged fields and he is unsure how many pumpkins he will be able to sell. "Unless everyone runs out of pumpkins this week, everything that's 100 per cent green will get left in the fields," he says. The waterlogging and rotted fruits echo the muddy fields of Illinois three years ago. Such was the shortage then that Americans were reduced to bidding on eBay to fill their Thanksgiving pies. Yet this year in the US, pumpkins are in a rare bright spot. Illinois farmers quoted by news agency AP say the dry weather that baked the region in summer is perfect for pumpkins, keeping them fungus and disease-free. UK supermarkets also see the bright side - or the flickering candle in the traditional carved jack o" lantern. Tesco, which claims to sell more than a third of all the pumpkins sold in the UK in the run-up to Halloween, says it has 2m ready to hit the shelves: more than enough to meet demand, which it expects to be up 15 per cent on last year. The supermarket adds that demand has increased by 60 per cent in the past six years and that no other fruit moves off the shelf so quickly in October. And they are selling even quicker this year, as talk of shortages percolates through clustered parents at the school gates, according to Tesco pumpkin buyer Natasha Beagley. This year, because of reports of a bad season for some growers, we are seeing higher demand than normal and it's happening earlier.