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Madisonville, TN

I pollinated two pumpkins on a 220 Debacco plant 7 days ago. One was on a side vine and the other was on the main vine. Both are about 16 feet from the stump. The one on the side vine is twice as big as the one the main vine. Should I wait longer to see if the one on the main catches up or go with the one on the side vine?

7/13/2014 9:45:13 PM

valparaiso, in

I would keep the one on the main vine. For some reason the pumpkins on the side vine always start out faster than the ones on the main vine for me. In the end the main vine ones win out. I would only grow one on a side vine if I had no other option.

7/13/2014 10:40:48 PM

Colorado

ditto on what gritch says-go with mv fruit

7/14/2014 12:57:45 AM

Upa Creek, Mo

But before you cut, I would make sure the main one is growing. There is no set day to know, when to cull etc... it has to be a judgment call.

7/14/2014 7:36:53 AM

Germany

In addition to what Luke pointed out, it probably isn´t bad to wait for some more days rather than culling the side vine pumpkin too early. In 2012 I had a plant where I´ve had two pumpkins growing on the same plant, one on the main and one on a strong first secondary. After a while the main vine pumpkin (which indeed was the better grower) developed a bad stem end split and I had to remove it. The fruit on the secondary did continue to grow for many more weeks, and, now that´s the interesting part of the story, I couldn´t find any difference in its growth behavior between before and after removal of the main vine pumpkin.

7/14/2014 9:31:55 AM