Wayne Bishop, owner of Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland, likes that the National Pumpkin Weigh-Off event, which will be held for the second year on Saturday at his farm, benefits the community.
“It brings attention to Yuba County and Wheatland, and then the best thing about it is that we’re getting kids interested in agriculture again,” Bishop said. “We just had a couple of entries last year in the youth division, and this year, we think that we might have between five and 10 entries. If we can keep growing that part of the contest like that, that’s really my goal. I want to see kids doing this.”
The intention to rope in kids aligns with the pumpkin farm’s roots. Bishop’s parents started the farm, and his mom had been a teacher. She knew that kids just didn’t know a lot about agriculture, and she wanted to get kids to come on a farm during a field trip.