Heavy rains hurt Long Island agri-tourism

Unusually heavy rainfall across Long Island the past few months has meant a difficult season for crops, from grapes to lettuce to pumpkins -- a large profit-maker for farms during the fall tourist season -- grown by local farmers.

In fact, many farmers were forced to truck in pumpkins from other locations, from as far west as Indiana, for the Halloween fall tourist season, said Joseph Gergela of the Long Island Farm Bureau in Calverton.

"This is not an occasional week of rain," said Gergela. "Now we're getting biblical rains. . . . We're worried about it. There is nothing you can do to take the water off, and it invites disease."

Pumpkin-picking season, known as "agri-tourism," is a large part of many farmers' annual income. Traffic backs up for miles as tourists arrive to pick their own pumpkins and apples, take hay rides and participate in other rural-themed activities.

"This is important to us, economically," Gergela said.

Storms including Irene and other unnamed heavy rain episodes, as well as a hailstorm a few weeks back pummeled some crops, Gergela noted.

Among those is lettuce, a fragile vegetable, which has been soaked by rain and torn up by the hail, Gergela said. Vine crops other than pumpkins, such as cucumber and melons, are also having a tough year.

Even some wine crops took a beating. Many of the grapes at local vineyards had to be picked by hand, said Gergela, to sort out ones rotted by too much water.

Usually, farmers do not receive direct financial aid to compensate for weather-related crop damage, but this year they can apply for help through a new state program initiated by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in September. It will reimburse them half the cost of replacing lost crops, including having to truck in gourds from other areas during the pumpkin-picking season, said Susan Pierzchanowski, executive director of the USDA Farm Service Agency. Applications for the relief fund must be submitted by 4 p.m. Nov. 7. Pierzchanowski said farmers can call her office in Suffolk for more information: 631-727-5666. ext. 2.

Low-cost loans are also available, Pierzchanowski said.