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SF Bay Area, California

Every year growers gravitate toward the top proven seeds with high hopes and heavy expectations. Due to this grower tendency, a 1068 Wallace seed is now worth more than my pickup. I’m not dissing the 1068 – it’s an over the top seed. What has always bothered me though, is knowing that there are probably many unproven seeds out there with an equivalent potential – just undiscovered.

This year, ten new seeds demonstrated latent portly inclinations by popping at least one fruit over 1250 pounds. Two more popped a 1,200 plus fruit plus at least one more over 1,000 pounds. Now, I know that some seed stocks pop a big one, are then heavily planted only to find that the biggy was a lone ranger. But this is how the real jewels are found in this game…

In fact, many of the heavily planted, well known, top proven seeds out there have only popped one over 1200 pounds. This includes the 1097.5 Beachy, the 1225.4 Jutras and the 1420.5 LaRue. Sure they have produced plenty of 1,000 pounders, but these days a thousand pounder and a quarter won’t buy you a cup of coffee at a weigh off.

To me the newly proven crop of seeds are more tantalizing – since they haven’t yet been disproved by heavy planting. That’s why I call them the Delectable Dozen. The 1068 Wallace and the 1370 Rose were in this newbe category just a few years ago and look what happened.

Interestingly, the newly proven list includes three 1420.5 LaRue/1446 Eaton crosses. The 1231.3 Pukos, it’s reverse cross the 998.6 Pukos, and the 947 Hunt. Top offspring of these three seeds are in the 1300-1400+ range. I’ll bet there are more of these LaRue/Eaton crosses with boocoo potential. I also particularly like the 1082 Mackinnon, two known offspring, 1187 and 1368 – wow!

To see the full list of the Delectable Dozen go to:

http://home.pacbell.net/diana_do/newproven.htm

I expect to see more fireworks from these twelve.

Ha

12/31/2006 12:59:09 PM

SF Bay Area, California

Happy New Year!!

vince

12/31/2006 1:04:46 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Interesting results Vince...Thanks for sharing. Now to get the right growers growing some of them & look out. The irony is there are hundred more where these came from.

Happy New Year!

12/31/2006 4:20:13 PM

ordinary,VA

grew the 1231.3 last year will grow the 1231.3(sorry Joe)again this year.
not helping his top average weight here:) I might make joe's
1231.3 a cold seed ..

12/31/2006 6:01:54 PM

Rhode Island

i truely believe that another custom we follow as pumpkin growers is " NAME RECOGNITION "

this as well as anything plays a huge roll in what seeds get planted heavily that first year or two out of the gate.

these same seeds get a greater planting than many seeds from the not so well known growers and thus have a better chance for success. thats just the way it is.

this will never change because we all want the chance to duplicate what a good grower has done before us.

several years back there were a half dozen growers whos seeds were in great demand.
before that a different set of in demand growers.
five years from now a hole new set will be in place.

it could very well be you.

pap

12/31/2006 8:56:29 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Great list, thanks for the details and info Vince. Interestingly enough, the 1195 van Kooten seed was not very widely planted yet got those incredible results. Will be interesting to see how it does next year now that it has a record behind it. Even more interesting (well, for me anyways) is that I have a few of Vince's top 12 seeds in my inventory that I hope to grow soon.

12/31/2006 9:20:43 PM

Ohio

Nice Vince.

1/1/2007 4:38:50 AM

Minnesota(dw447@fastmail.fm)

Vince, are you thinking of planting any of those dozen this year? Thanks for the info.

1/1/2007 2:00:40 PM

SF Bay Area, California

The 1187 Slusarek is on my short list and the 1082 Mackinnon would be if I can get my hands on one....

1/1/2007 4:12:03 PM

South East

i agree with pap on this.
so many good crosses that name maybay becomes more important, i think its not a dozen but a 100 or more, now if they were just planted...

1/1/2007 5:23:05 PM

Netherlands

I totally agree with pap on name recognition. There are several (Canadian) growers that produce spectacular results, year in, year out, but receive little (world-wide) recognition. It would be very good to pay attention to what they are doing and get in on their seeds.

A few Canadian names I would like to mention are:
Todd Kline
Pierre Slusarek
Jake van Kooten
Dave Pitura

These gentlemen (and there are several others) have produced over 1100 lbs many times and most of them over 1300 as well. Two of these produced 4 or 5 over 1000 just this past season.

1/2/2007 2:27:01 AM

Eugene,OR

Oh, so many seeds, so little space, so little time.

1/2/2007 12:33:04 PM