HOKKAIDO, JAPAN - Short of watching the Harry Potter movies, you’re not likely to walk into an area and find yourself surrounded by a bunch of floating pumpkins.
Unless you’re in Naganuma, Hokkaido, one of the largest producers of pumpkins in Japan.
According to The Japan News, Naganuma farmers have begun using aeroculture (agriculture suspended off the ground) to grow kabocha pumpkins.
“I can harvest the pumpkins standing up, without having to bend at the waist,” Junya Nagamori, Manager of a the Shinsei Shoji greenhouse farm, told Naohiro Yoshida and Yomiuri Shimbun of The Japan News. “It’s also cooler in the greenhouses during summer because the vines block the sun.”
Not only does this method help cool the greenhouse, which is important in Japan’s tropical climate, but the growers also say that the suspension helps provide better color to the gourds by giving sun exposure to the parts that would normally be buried.
Having come to be known as “flying pumpkins” in the area, Masaei Takada, owner of Shinsei Shoji, told the reporters that these pumpkins have better quality and texture than on average this year. As a result, the company’s pumpkins were trading for a higher price than conventionally soil-grown pumpkins at about ¥3,000 (about $25) per 10 kilograms (about 22 pounds). That’s more than a dollar per pound of pumpkin.
Hokkaido’s prefectural government also credits the area’s extreme differences in daytime and nighttime temperatures, The Japan News reports, for contribution to what is described as delicious pumpkins with both a crumbly and soft texture.
So while the method may appear a little strange and spooky, especially at this time of year, it also appears to be effective.
