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Germany

What seeds or seedlines are known for a long and steady growing period of the pumpkin?
Thanks Benny

12/19/2008 4:51:56 PM

milford, CT,

2 years ago I grew the 1273 Howard. It was stll gaining 4 lbs a day on day 94. The offspring of that pumpkin exhibited the same type of growth curve and was still gaining 5 lbs a day on day 88. The 1273 Howard is
1370 Rose x 1054 Howard. I'd be curious to hear if others have seen long growth curves on 1370 Rose offspring? Mark

12/19/2008 5:07:05 PM

Joliet, IL

1041.5 mckie produced the 1631 that was stilling growing at over 100 days and my 1041.5 fruit also grew up to picking at 94 days old.

12/20/2008 9:17:29 PM

Rhode Island

weather is more of a determining factor with regard to length of growing season.

12/21/2008 9:02:02 AM

Joliet, IL

i agree that weather plays a significant role to the length of a growing season of your pumpkins. and individual health of the plant will surely play a role of how long it keeps packing pounds into its pumpkin. but within the same patch when you have 3 plants all healthy, that have all endured the same weather throughout the season, and one plant's pumpkin continues to chug all the way to the weighoff while others have shut down 2 or 3 weeks prior....this to me is genetic.

i would love to see as much ott info after 70 days on existing pumpkins. track 70 to 80 day averages, 80 to 90, 90 to 100, and 100-110. the data will show if certain crosses not only have longer growth curves than others, but also most important the quantity of growth after day 70.

this info will be vital for hitting 2000 lbs in my eyes. take a longer growth curve seed, plant it early, have it grow continually past 120+ days all the way to a weighoff, and go heavy. seems to me in my experience percent heavier pumpkins are the ones that grow longer.

12/21/2008 10:02:30 AM

Ontario, Canada.

Jeff, I have some of that info in the benchmark file. I can pass it along to you.

Plants that are able to continue to have expanding sinks at old age are much more efficient at respiration and photosynthesis production. This is referred to as the compensation point. I wrote an article about a plants abilities to continue to produce fruit sink storage in lowering light levels of September. The article is featured in the GVGO newsletter this fall and maybe in a couple of others.

The question of genetics is up for debate. Firstly, you would certainly need a plant that has a strong vibrant root system with lots of adventitious unsuberized roots as well. Secondly such a plant would be packed with plenty of chloroplasts for increased photosynthesis and carbohydrate production. A third point is sink storage strength and its ability to demand carbohydrates for storage while holding off ethylene production and senescence. Is this genetic or cultural I'm not sure.

Other key factors would be leaf canopy size and overall plant size. Leaves that have room to expand and lay flat are far better at photosynthesis than a smaller denser plant with cupped leaves. Larger plants may be better at moving the compensation point further back in September than others plants. This is strictly a growers cultural practice influencing fruit growth. There is a lot of study in this area but much of it does not directly involve pumpkins.

Russ

12/21/2008 2:20:52 PM

Ontario, Canada.

I just took a quick look and found a couple of plants you might be interested in. There may be several others that are yet to be identified. The 1446 Werner is one as is the 1066 Starr before it went down. The two best in the data base are the >

1556 Werner 96 days old at harvest.
gained 11" cc after day 70
and 22.5" OTT

1524 Starr 94 days old at harvest.
gained 6.5" cc after day 70
and 16" OTT

These two gentlemen maybe able to shed some light onto this topic as to why these plants seamed to produce until the bitter end.

Great topic though. Sink Source relationship is always fascinating.

Russ

12/21/2008 2:45:34 PM