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Entry Date
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Location
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Saturday, June 26, 2010
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shazzy
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Joliet, IL
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Entry 92 of 267 |
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here is a picture that has me fretting, but i think will be ok in the long run. this is the stem on April on the 873 naylor 2009. 3 days ago i saw a small split forming on top of the stem that has gotten wider, but not deeper. this pumpkin was the one that was going to lay on top of the vine and was slightly wedged away from the vine early on with a piece of styrofome so it would lay down away from the vine. i never put too much pressure, but somehow some very small unnoticed cracks must have occured early on in the lay down process and since then a couple more small ones developed only on the backside of the stem opposite side of the stump. they look worse in the picture than in person, but still have me fretting what could be problems down the road. the good thing is that the top split is just slowly widening and not going any deeper. it is healing itself and small tears keep reaching outward but not downward. there has been plenty of slack in the vine so it is not stem stress. i still cut 2 more taps besides the ones on each side of the stem in each direction this morning and put the main on styrofome blocks on each side raising it up to avoid future stress in this area. it almost seems like these are growth splits from a rapidly growing stem and pumpkin. more superficial than deep. what ever the reason, a fan and captan went on it this morning and will stay dry as all pumpkins have been covered in tarps since monday to keep from getting hailed on or rained on all week. this pumpkin grew 5" in circ. from 3pm yesterday until 7 am this morning and is chugging. hoping these splits continue to just widen out on top with growth like they are doing and not going any deeper. the heavy rainfalls all week cannot have helped matters with the big push. hoping it all just heals up and is not a problem, but for now it is something i am keeping a very close eye on.
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