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Smaller Pumpkins Expected This Halloween After Drought in England

Pumpkins lay on a field near the Dannstadt region in Germany (EPA) 
Pumpkins lay on a field near the Dannstadt region in Germany (EPA) 
TT
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Smaller Pumpkins Expected This Halloween After Drought in England

Pumpkins lay on a field near the Dannstadt region in Germany (EPA) 
Pumpkins lay on a field near the Dannstadt region in Germany (EPA) 

In the lead-up to Halloween, front porches across the country feature fat, proudly carved pumpkins, lit from within by tea lights.

But this year there is likely to be a shortage due to drought, experts have warned, with the squashes much smaller than usual, according to The Guardian.

Mini pumpkins will have to be used, and some have suggested that those celebrating the spooky festival draw faces on vegetables instead of carving them.

England has faced a punishing drought for most of this year, which has dramatically affected harvests.

Data has found that this year could be the worst harvest on record as farmers struggled to irrigate their crops.

Pumpkins are 90% water, and need a lot of it to grow. The vegetables are native to the Americas and were brought over in the Tudor period, during the 16th century.

Guy Singh-Watson, the founder of organic veg box company Riverford, said: “After such an extraordinarily hot, dry summer, it’s not surprising that Halloween pumpkins are smaller than usual as they are mostly water. But perhaps it’s time we questioned our obsession with giant carving pumpkins in the first place.”

Shunning pumpkins would go some way to bringing the carving of vegetables tradition back to its roots.

The custom began in 17th-century Britain while marking the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which was when spirits were thought to roam the Earth.

Rather than pumpkins, root vegetables such as celeriac, turnips and mangelwurzels were carved into grotesque faces, and some believed they could ward off evil spirits.

Guy Barter, the chief horticulturalist at the Royal Horticultural Society, said: “Pumpkins are on the small side this year unless heavily watered. Such drought makes watering sufficiently very difficult to accomplish in practice.”

He said pumpkins are relatively drought-tolerant but this year the weather stretched their tolerance to the limit.

“The heat later and some drought stress caused fruits to ripen earlier than usual,” Barter noted. “Their dry matter content and rind hardness are both excellent so the crop should store well, although commercial pumpkins become worthless the day after Halloween. That’s a pity as they make lovely soups until the new year when the much tastier winter squashes take over.”

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On the Front Line of Ocean Conservation off Portugal’s Madeira

The four-masted sailing vessel Santa Maria Manuela sails in the open sea off the coast of Madeira, on October 12, 2026 during the "Madeira Ocean" scientific expedition. (AFP)
The four-masted sailing vessel Santa Maria Manuela sails in the open sea off the coast of Madeira, on October 12, 2026 during the "Madeira Ocean" scientific expedition. (AFP)
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On the Front Line of Ocean Conservation off Portugal’s Madeira

The four-masted sailing vessel Santa Maria Manuela sails in the open sea off the coast of Madeira, on October 12, 2026 during the "Madeira Ocean" scientific expedition. (AFP)
The four-masted sailing vessel Santa Maria Manuela sails in the open sea off the coast of Madeira, on October 12, 2026 during the "Madeira Ocean" scientific expedition. (AFP)

Juan Mayorga smiled as a stingray glided across his computer screen, moving gracefully over the seabed near Portugal's Desertas Islands, part of the Madeira archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's a good day when we see animals like this," said the Colombian environmental engineer, who is analyzing underwater footage to measure the effects of marine protection.

"This is conservation in action," said Mayorga, 36, who works for Pristine Seas, a marine conservation initiative run by the National Geographic Society.

"As we protect the place, year after year, fish get bigger and bigger and bigger, produce more and more babies, and that is protection working right there."

Mayorga is among nearly 200 scientists taking part in a month-long expedition in October to study the marine environment around Madeira, the birthplace of football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.

Researchers aboard around 15 vessels are investigating the archipelago's marine life, assessing the health of its ecosystems and exploring how they can better withstand climate change.

Mayorga is analyzing underwater video recorded at depths of 40 to 50 meters (130 to 165 feet) by cameras mounted on metal frames baited to attract fish.

He is particularly interested in comparing waters south of the Desertas Islands, where fishing is completely prohibited, with those to the north, where some fishing is still allowed.

The comparison offers a glimpse of how different levels of protection affect marine life.

- 'Real fight' -

The expedition's flagship is the 70-meter sailing ship Santa Maria Manuela, which has brought researchers to the Desertas Islands, a group of three uninhabited rocky islets about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Madeira.

Rising steeply from the Atlantic, the islands' rust-colored cliffs, rocky slopes and windswept ridges form a protected nature reserve where seabirds circle above the waves.

On the largest island, Rui Seabra, a 44-year-old researcher from the University of Porto, attaches temperature sensors to rocks exposed at low tide along a small cove.

He wants to understand how crustaceans and sponges fare in sunny and shaded areas, information that could help scientists predict how marine biodiversity will respond to rising temperatures.

"We need to understand how biodiversity will be redistributed, which species will migrate where, what the conditions are here, how they will change, and which species we expect to find here in the future," he said.

Nearby, a marine biologist aboard an inflatable boat collected environmental DNA samples from the water.

The technique can reveal which fish species are present even when they evade the cameras.

"We are on the front lines of the real fight to find solutions that allow us to address problems on the ground," said expedition leader Emanuel Goncalves.

- 'Best weapon' -

The fieldwork comes as a UN biodiversity summit, known as COP17, gets underway Monday in Armenia to discuss efforts to protect the world's natural ecosystems.

Goncalves, chief scientist at Portugal's Oceano Azul Foundation, a marine conservation non-profit, acknowledges the importance of international meetings in setting political priorities.

But "the urgency to act does not allow us to wait for decisions that sometimes take decades," he said.

Madeira has long been a pioneer in marine conservation.

The archipelago includes the main island of Madeira, the beach destination of Porto Santo, the Desertas Islands and the remote Selvagens Islands, about 280 kilometers farther south toward Spain's Canary Islands.

In 1971, authorities established a reserve around the Selvagens Islands to protect Cory's shearwaters, seabirds found around Madeira and other Atlantic islands.

Expanded in 2022, the reserve now covers about 2,600 square kilometers (1,000 square miles), making it the largest protected marine area in the North Atlantic.

Another reserve established around the Desertas Islands in the early 1990s has helped a colony of Mediterranean monk seals, one of Europe's most endangered marine mammals, grow from just eight animals to 31.

"An ocean in a good state of conservation is the best weapon we have against climate change," said Paulo Oliveira, coordinator of the Madeira Ocean conservation program launched in May.

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Spending More Time Close to Cats Improves Mood, Study Finds

Owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life. (Colorado State University)
Owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life. (Colorado State University)
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Spending More Time Close to Cats Improves Mood, Study Finds

Owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life. (Colorado State University)
Owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life. (Colorado State University)

Owners who spent more time physically close to their cats tended to report more positive moods, according to a new study by a Kyoto University-led team.

The study, published in the journal iScience, came amid a common claim that caring for a feline friend has positive effects on human health and well-being while other studies reporting possible negative effects of cat ownership.

This led a team of researchers at Kyoto University to question the idea that simply owning a cat provides intrinsic health benefits. Instead, they wondered whether any benefits or drawbacks to keeping a cat come from the quality of the relationship between the human and cat, particularly how owners interact with their cats in everyday life.

To investigate, the team conducted a one-month study of the daily lives of a group of 29 cats and their 19 owners, recruited through flyers and social media.

In each household, the researchers conducted hormonal analysis through urine samples, attached small Bluetooth Low Energy beacons to the cats' collars to measure daily physical proximity, assessed the owners' moods through questionnaires and observed the cats' behavior toward their owners and unfamiliar people.

The results revealed a hormonal connection between cats and their owners involving oxytocin and cortisol, hormones that are associated with social relationships and stress, respectively.

The team observed a positive correlation between the urinary concentrations of oxytocin in cats and their owners, with higher oxytocin levels in cats linked to lower cortisol levels and fewer negative feelings in their owners.

In fact, the cats' oxytocin levels were more closely associated with their owners' negative mood states than the owners' own oxytocin levels were.

Ultimately, the researchers observed that positive mood states in owners were not connected to how long they had had their cats, but rather to the overall physical proximity between owners and their cats. In other words, owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life.

“I think many cat owners are familiar with the sense of comfort and peace they feel when their cat climbs onto their lap seeking affection, they start to pet it, and the cat begins purring contentedly,” said the study’s corresponding author Saho Takagi.

“Our findings suggest that this feeling may be partly reflected in the hormonal connection between cats and their owners, particularly through oxytocin, a hormone involved in the formation of parent-child bonds and social relationships,” he added.

This study helps to explain why previous inquiries into the health benefits of cat ownership have produced inconsistent results by demonstrating that the quality of the relationship between human and cat matters more than simply owning a cat.

However, these findings show only associations, so any causation is still unclear. In the future, the team hopes to explore more deeply how cats and humans influence each other through their everyday interactions.

Varieties

Smaller Pumpkins Expected This Halloween After Drought in England

Pumpkins lay on a field near the Dannstadt region in Germany (EPA) 
Pumpkins lay on a field near the Dannstadt region in Germany (EPA) 
TT
TT

Smaller Pumpkins Expected This Halloween After Drought in England

Pumpkins lay on a field near the Dannstadt region in Germany (EPA) 
Pumpkins lay on a field near the Dannstadt region in Germany (EPA) 

In the lead-up to Halloween, front porches across the country feature fat, proudly carved pumpkins, lit from within by tea lights.

But this year there is likely to be a shortage due to drought, experts have warned, with the squashes much smaller than usual, according to The Guardian.

Mini pumpkins will have to be used, and some have suggested that those celebrating the spooky festival draw faces on vegetables instead of carving them.

England has faced a punishing drought for most of this year, which has dramatically affected harvests.

Data has found that this year could be the worst harvest on record as farmers struggled to irrigate their crops.

Pumpkins are 90% water, and need a lot of it to grow. The vegetables are native to the Americas and were brought over in the Tudor period, during the 16th century.

Guy Singh-Watson, the founder of organic veg box company Riverford, said: “After such an extraordinarily hot, dry summer, it’s not surprising that Halloween pumpkins are smaller than usual as they are mostly water. But perhaps it’s time we questioned our obsession with giant carving pumpkins in the first place.”

Shunning pumpkins would go some way to bringing the carving of vegetables tradition back to its roots.

The custom began in 17th-century Britain while marking the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which was when spirits were thought to roam the Earth.

Rather than pumpkins, root vegetables such as celeriac, turnips and mangelwurzels were carved into grotesque faces, and some believed they could ward off evil spirits.

Guy Barter, the chief horticulturalist at the Royal Horticultural Society, said: “Pumpkins are on the small side this year unless heavily watered. Such drought makes watering sufficiently very difficult to accomplish in practice.”

He said pumpkins are relatively drought-tolerant but this year the weather stretched their tolerance to the limit.

“The heat later and some drought stress caused fruits to ripen earlier than usual,” Barter noted. “Their dry matter content and rind hardness are both excellent so the crop should store well, although commercial pumpkins become worthless the day after Halloween. That’s a pity as they make lovely soups until the new year when the much tastier winter squashes take over.”