From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Italia

still some month and the season will be over... but now I just have a little problem to solve in order to prevent it for next years.
I would like to understand what's happened to these flowers because the pumpkins have aborted after two weeks even if I do a manual pollination.
The seed is 1337 Jaser (12) (1161 Rondonis x sib)
Someone can tell me something about it?
If you want see some pictures you can find them on my diary

8/15/2013 10:05:02 AM

Georgetown, Ontario

You have a sterile plant. It's always a good idea if you are growing a new seed to plant a different pumpkin on the other end of your plot (growing towards each other)and when the first male flowers show up, check to see they have all their parts. If one is missing the stamen (like yours) then the plant is sterile and you likely won't ever get a pumpkin to set on it.

8/15/2013 4:21:49 PM

NorthEast

I also tried growing the same seed this year. I usually avoid unproven seeds, but with the 1161 Rodonis ties I really believed that it was worth taking a chance. I had very few female flowers and even fewer male flowers. Both the male and female parts inside the flowers were very tiny. They were smaller than any other pumpkin flowers that I've ever worked with in the past. I've been growing close to 15 years now. I did try to hand pollinate several male flowers from other pumpkin plants on the very few female 1337 flowers that I had. It turned out that I was lucky enough to get one pumpkin to develop on that plant. All others aborted. The one that did develop was very slow to grow. Right now it is about 40 days old and is estimated at about 300 pounds. It is growing about an inch a day. The plant started out as one of the most beautiful looking pumpkin plants that I've grown. I was so upbeat about it. The leaves were huge and the vines grew fairly fast. Then eventually I knew I was in for a big let down when flowers were not appearing on schedule. I was beginning to wonder at one point if I would get any male flowers at all. My biggest advice is to try to get a seed with a better track record for next year. For me, it is crushing to spend so much time and money on each plant, which I always do, and then run into a problem like this. After this, heading into the future I think I will only grow seeds that have at least been around a little while and have a good track record of success. I only have the space to grow a few plants each year, so I've learned that it really isn't worth the risk to grow something without any real history of success. If anyone has had any successs with the 1337 Jaser this year I'd like to hear about it. I invested in several other of those same seeds and wonder if it would be worth ever giving it a go again with that seed if there are at least some good success stories.

8/16/2013 3:46:15 PM