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Monrovia,CA

Hello again! I've been having 2 misters right next to the pumpkin to keep the temp below 80 degrees under the shade structure. Yestarday I went out at about 2:00 and it was 88 in there!! I pushed the misters closer to the pumpkin and got it back down to about 73 but the fruit and the ground around it is staying pretty soggy because of the constant water. Should I let it go for a day and let things dry out,letting the temp go way up? I dry the pumpkin everyday right after the misters go off at about 5:00. Thanks for your suggestions!
Michelle

8/3/2003 1:16:50 PM

[email protected]

Michelle,

Proper misting needn't make things wet. We're looking for evaporative cooling effect here. The slightest amount of moisture will lower the ambient air temperature as it evaporates. Try to either reduce mister output through the use of smaller nozzles (preferable) or reduce the length of time they're running. Most work fine if run for less than 1 minute. Though very few controllers are capable of providing this luxury.

Grow well.

Steve

8/3/2003 4:55:41 PM

Chico, Ca

We dont worry about 88f inside our pumpkin enclosures. 95 or 100f then you are too hot. We keep our pumpkin dry! Put your misters over the top of shade structure if you are using tarps.It will lower the inside temps and keep your fruit dry. We just had two weeks of 105+ F and never saw over 92f inside our pumpkin huts. I live where it is hotter then Hell(100-110f) in summer so I run misters for 3-5 min every half hour. One minute run times here don't do crap!

We get 80%+ of our total water for our pumpkins through misting! We run high volume misters(7 GPH) in our setup.
This allows us to fertilize through our misters saving alot of time. Low volume misters will clog. But we dont get our pumpkins wet. Take a look at our growers diary for photos.

Good luck and e mail me with any questions Robert

8/3/2003 11:48:36 PM

Monrovia,CA

Wow!! And I thought Monrovia was hot!! Thankyou so much for the advice. It's a wonder I havn't rotted the poor thing before now. I am going to have to redesign my shader..I think the round quanset hut type will shed water better. I'll find a way to get the mister over the top. Steve...thanks for the info. I'm now looking into a way of timing these guys so they're not on all day solid. Many thanks again, folks.
Happy Growing!!
Michelle

8/4/2003 12:43:50 AM