MONSON, Mass. (AP) – Leaves are beginning to change on the sugar maples that tower over the stone walls near Westview Farms, but there’s something missing from this New England autumn scene: the pumpkins.

Instead of countless pumpkins covering Westview’s pumpkin fields, weeds have taken over the land.

The $20,000 that farmer Dave Bradway spent planting pumpkins in mid-June may as well be rotting in the earth with the seeds ruined by too much rain.

“This time of year, you’re supposed to see nothing but orange. Solid orange,” Bradway said recently as he surveyed 53 acres of what he called a “total crop failure.”Massachusetts farmers and agriculture experts said as much as half of the state’s pumpkin crop may have been washed away by heavy rains in May and June.

“Some fields were so wet that the seeds didn’t germinate,” said Ruth Hazzard, a vegetable specialist at the University of Massachusetts Extension Agriculture program. “Some farmers couldn’t plant at all because it was too wet.”

The National Agricultural Statistics Service, which keeps records of annual crop yields, won’t have an official tally for this year’s pumpkin production for several months. In 2005, the agency reported that Massachusetts pumpkin patches yielded about 9,300 pounds per acre.

Maine’s total was 9,100 pounds per acre, while Vermont’s 2005 per-acre total was 13,000.

Gerald Tillman, a deputy director for the service, based in Concord, N.H., said Massachusetts farmers seem to have been the worst hit in New England. Other crops, like corn and potatoes, were hurt by the rain, but nowhere near as badly as pumpkins, Tillman said.

George Hamilton, an agricultural resources educator at the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, said a series of problems afflicted state pumpkin crops this year: heavy rain delayed planting, impeded pollination and contributed to rot on blossoms and fruit; powdery mildew stunted pumpkin growth;and many other concerns for good growth.

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