With the start of October right around the corner, some squash and pumpkin farmers in the Pioneer Valley and North Quabbin are bearing the burden of Phytophthora capsici — a soil-based disease described by one farmer as being “like the plague” for pumpkins and squashes.

Walking through a barren pumpkin patch, Harrison Bardwell of Bardwell Farm in Hatfield picked up what appeared to be a healthy pumpkin. When he lightly pressed his index finger against the gourd’s surface, it broke through, exposing a rotted interior.

“Half our field died off early because of this disease. It just physically killed the plants off, and there’s not much you can do about that,” Bardwell said. “The hardest part about this disease is that it just spreads so easily. … You could pick up one bad squash or pumpkin, put it on your front doorstep, go throw it in a field or something at the end of its life, and that field is potentially going to start being infected by that disease.”

In normal weather and with healthy soil, Bardwell said the farm usually produces roughly 30 to 40 bins of pumpkins — or roughly 800 pounds of produce — per acre on his approximately 10-acre farm. This year, however, Phytophthora capsici led to a roughly 90% reduction in his squash and pumpkin yield, with each acre only yielding three or four bins of produce.

Bardwell said that although UMass Extension’s Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment is researching the disease with the hope of developing Phytophthora-resistant pumpkin seeds or a fungicide that’s effective in killing it off, there is little he can do to protect his existing pumpkin crops.

This year, Bardwell said his farm shifted focus to growing different crops — such as cauliflower, kale, tomatoes and cabbage — in an effort to avoid the negative business impacts of the pumpkin plague. The farm purchased pumpkins for resale at its farm stand to meet customer demand.

“There’s not a lot of good fungicides out there to help with this disease yet. The biggest issue is that it’s such a small area of this world that is affected by this that it’s not well known enough in the U.S. to really focus on it. I think the Pioneer Valley is really one of the strong points of dealing with this disease,” Bardwell said. “At this point, it’s just finding a way that you can work around it. We’re really looking at ways to do better drainage in our soil, so either planting on raised beds or on plastic, mulch to help keep the rain away from the roots of the crops. Really, the only other thing we can do is try to create a barrier between the soil and the fruit that we’re growing.”

Al Rose of Red Apple Farm in Phillipston said the soil disease prompted his farm to pivot to growing sunflowers, shifting his pumpkin crop onto leased land owned by a neighboring family.

Since wet soil conditions exacerbate the rotting caused by Phytophthora capsici, Rose said his farm has removed all of the pumpkin crops from its low-level land and replaced them with sunflowers, which he said are not vulnerable to the disease.

“We had a tough pumpkin year last year, but this year is shaping up to be a good year,” Rose said. “We’ve been fortunate enough to take some of our low-lying land that will become at higher risk for Phytophthora, out of pumpkin production over the years. … That’s the main reason we got into sunflowers and now we have three fields of sunflowers. … It’s that old saying, make lemonade out of lemons.”

When Red Apple Farm transitioned to growing sunflowers roughly four years ago, Rose said the change prompted a number of “pick your own” packages after the farm began growing potatoes, zinnia flowers and other crops that customers could gather themselves.

Since the farm serves primarily as an apple orchard, Rose added that growing sunflowers, which benefits bees’ digestive health, helps pollinate the farm’s apple trees, making the change a blessing in disguise.

“Every year, it seems like it’s been challenging to deal with adversity, but with this weather, we’re very fortunate that the hurricane systems aren’t making their way up this far,” Rose noted. “One of the greatest challenges in farming is that you can’t control the weather.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.