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Southern Illinois

every mourning i walk the out side of my patch there are hundred of pumpkins that have aborted,to me each one is 5.00 i had just lost,reasons why they abort,heat stress,to much nitrogen,natures way of thining them out,there are so many reasons,i was reading a article about thining apples farmer use liquid seven to thin there apples,well that is not good because i use that product,so is it thining out my pumpkins,i have figured out many pumpkin problems,i have found a product that will make a pumpkin turn orange any time i want it to,i found a chemical that attracts thousands of bees,those were major problems for me,i have mixed 2 1/2 gallon jug with a little captan and a little 20-20-20,and i have open the flower and poured a little bit inside,well none of them have aborted yet they are past the stage of abort but i have only done 10 of them,so that really dont mean anything,i do have a couple plant that have not aborted a single pumpkin they are loaded with pumpkins,should i keep all the seed and plant next year,is it a genetic thing.

8/29/2002 9:24:16 AM

Kuna, Id.

From what I see of your patch you need to pick a couple plants early and focus on them. I'm still new at this myself and don't want to offend you but I don't think your odds of ever growing a big one(1000 lbs) is very good the way you grow. I understand that you sell your pkns. So if it were me I would find some proven seeds and start a personal patch away from your income patch. This by it self should double your size. You seem to have the no how so just apply it to some good seed. If this offends you I'm very sorry.
Ken

8/29/2002 10:04:10 AM

Southern Illinois

yes next year i am going to get a few good seed to raise,on two acres,i am going to plant my sales patch in another location,and yes next year i will raise a 1000 pound pumpkin,i did get around 14 good seeds from howard dill,which one plant skyler 1 is around 425 lb and skyler 2 is about 450 lb and still growing,since i have found this site my thoughts of growing a 1,000 pound pumpkin just gets me excited,so next year the way i raise my big pumpkins will be about a couple hundred plant in my patch ,not thousands the way i raise my sales pumpkins,and ken the only thing that offend me is that you did not give me any good advice on aborts.

8/29/2002 10:49:14 AM

Garden State Pumpkins

Hey Double H....Wow thats alot of pumpkins. If what I read is correct Big pumpkins require room...While some good reports from 500 feet I'll bet less then ten percent of the 1000 lbers came from that size patch and if they did I'll bet they got at least 2 hours a daspent on one plant...The reading suggest 1000 to 1200 square feet for the big ones! Two acres is enough room if we pare that down to 800 feet each for 100 plants. Not 200...If you worked just the 2 acres 12 hrs a day 7 days a week that would be 84 hours or 5040 minutes...divide by 100 plants equals 50.4 minutes a week per plant divide by 7 for the days in the week equals 7.2 minutes a day per plant! How many 1000 lbers do you think were grown on plants that were given 8 minutes a day total time...weed. fert. water. debug, fungicide till etc...and that's cramming it into 800 feet no room to move around even if you doubled the space to 1600 square feet and only had fifty plants given 14.4 minutes a day...Hmmm tough doing ...100 cold frames is a lot of work...Scale back the number of plants give them all plenty of room start 8 times the seed you plan to put out cull to the best plant that makes it and go from there! YIKES!! Grow Em BIG!!! Chuck

8/29/2002 4:56:34 PM

Kuna, Id.

Sorry I didnt answer your first question. From what I no of aborts(had over 30 this yr on 4 plants)all my females wanted to open during the week we had 110-115 temps.Covered them with ice and a cooler no luck. The rest I dont no why,some happened from bad pollination,some from the plant being sick,some just because. I dont think anyone can tell ya why it happens, but these things I have mentioned are some contributing factors.Most everyone here hand pollinates your odds are a little better the hopeing a bee hits every lobe in the female. Chuck is right if ya really want a biggin start with 16-20 seeds keep your best 8-10 plants.Man these things are work I spend at min 4hrs a day during the season in the patch,weeding,drink a beer,checking vines,drink a beer,bury vines,drink a beer,pruning,drink a beer,check for bugs,drink a beer,measureing and taking notes,drink a beer,weeding.......hey I already did that. Guess if I din't drink so much might go faster. Just kidding. 4 plants was a handful for me this yr and they didn't even get to the size the should have.So start small for the first yr and if ya can handel more go for it.Just my 2 cents
Ken

8/30/2002 12:05:24 PM

Key West, FL

i have only had like two or three

8/30/2002 1:02:29 PM