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Netherlands

Something is obviously wrong with the German pumpkin measurements. Almost all pumpkins of all weigh-offs are going (enormously) light to the charts. (-33, 24, 17, 16, 15, 14%) and one or two extremely heavy (31%). I know the new 2013 charts aren't very accurate, but even then.
Is it weather related or do they have another way of measuring pumpkins?

9/22/2014 2:27:57 AM

Knopp, Germany

Yeah, we don't like the way that the rest of the world measures so we make it extra hard on ourselves.

Don't mean to be sarcastic....uhm, well maybe I do.

I guess I was "obviously" sarcastic.

9/22/2014 8:13:54 AM

Germany

Brad, did you notice any particular weigh-off site which had the enormously light pumpkins? In such a case it might (to some extent) be the influence of the way the organizers have measured the OTT (perhaps measured the widest circumference instead of the widest circumference parallel to the ground...that could indeed give some additional inches OTT). The general phenomenon of big fruit going light in Germany could perhaps be attributed to the large fraction of those pumpkins grown in greenhouses.

9/22/2014 8:20:25 AM

Knopp, Germany

Pumpking, I can ensure you that you are just feeding fuel to the fire.

At every weighoff that I have gone to in the last 12 years I have been envolved with the measurements, outside of the strange shaped pumpkins, we have all seen that are hard to measure, they have been measured correctly.

Period.

9/22/2014 8:52:29 AM

Germany

Owen, no fuel from my end (at least not on purpose), and my post was just a response to the initial post by Brad (it did not address your response, neither the response itself nor you as the one who actually wrote it). My intention was to highlight the fact that measurement problems could occur on a single weigh-off site, but as soon as it appears to be a systematic feature there must be a different reason. Never tried to claim that on a particular weigh-off site measurements had been made in an erroneous manner.

9/22/2014 9:48:53 AM

Netherlands

Thanks for your reply Pumpking. I'm into statistics, and the statistics say that pumpkins at the three Germany weigh-offs go lighter than average. Period.

Thuringen - +31 to -33% (so 64% difference)
Kaiserlautern - 8 of 9 light (average 8,25 light including -24, -17, -16, -15, -14)
Krewelshof - 7 of 11 light (including -24, -17, -14)

So the question is, why? Very legitable question, I would think.

There are several possibilities. Weather, greenhouse, measuring, incorrect charts. Anything else?

9/22/2014 1:55:19 PM

Netherlands

legitimate*

9/22/2014 1:58:34 PM

Germany

From my perspective it should be the greenhouse influence (especially in case of the very big ones), in addition to some which probably from the genetics side go light. So far I have only grown outdoor pumpkins, and most of them went heavy (only the 1789 from 2012 was surprisingly light). As to charts, I guess all pumpkins are reported with respect to the same chart (haven´t checked it, but as long as the OTT measurement values are reported it shouldn´t be too difficult to find out if a different chart had been used). As to measuring, the GPC representatives I know (from at least 3 or 4 weigh-off sites) had been involved in various GPC events and I´m quite confident they know what they are doing.
Haven´t seen those pumpkins yet (from the 3 weigh-offs you had mentioned), maybe in addition to some greenhouse-light ones and some genetics-light ones there are some beanbag(or birdbath)-light ones...some of the odd shapes don´t know how to grow in accord with an OTT chart ;-)

In summary: Measuring errors are the last and least likely reason I would expect for this statistically striking appearance of so many light pumpkins in Germany.

9/22/2014 2:47:42 PM

Belgium

Hi Brad,

Jonas De Swert and I did the measurements in Krewelshof. I'm pretty sure they're ok!

For example: if you saw the pumpkins of Irene and Johannes Offerman next to each other, you couldn't say which one was the biggest. On the scale they were 100lbs different (pretty much on a total weight of 480lbs)

2nd example: Jos did a last measurement at home of his 2009: 469" OTT, we measured 470" OTT at the weigh off. Not a big difference on such a pumpkin :)

But I understand your thoughts :) A lot of big pumpkins this year in Europe, but if they will all go light?! I'm pretty nervous about my one if I see these results :p

9/22/2014 2:48:52 PM

Long Island,New York

Check the scale !!!

9/22/2014 5:15:46 PM

Wixom MI.

Sounds like everyone planted matt's marshmellow seed ? Lol....:-)

9/22/2014 6:23:01 PM

Netherlands

Dries, that is why I asked. I'm starting to bite my nails too wondering if mine will go light as well.
That being said, I have grown 12% heavy in the greenhouse. And my greenhouse temperatures are certainly not higher than the outside temperatures in California and several other states. That is why I don't think that the greenhouse effect is the only one.

9/23/2014 2:53:03 AM

France

We used to believe during a hot/sunny/dry season, pumpkins tend to go light but during a cold/wet season they tend to go heavy. However, I don't think it's the reason, last year, my squash was 27% light but both pumpkins were 3% and 24% heavy.

9/23/2014 4:09:19 AM

Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

one of my pumpkins went really light at Kaiserslautern weighoff because it had a bad bedding in the patch. It touched the scale only with three small spotts. I was able to look beneath it to the other side.

10/18/2014 2:45:30 PM

Germany

Udo: STELTS-Kürbis, nicht Stelzen-Kürbis!!! Du hast da in der strategischen Planung was verwechselt gehabt ;-)

(Sorry, hope the others forgive me that I wrote this little comment in German, simple reason is that in English it wouldn´t have the same effect.)

10/18/2014 3:09:53 PM