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Knopp, Germany

The Presidents Cup is a series of men's golf matches between a team representing the United States and an International Team representing the rest of the world minus Europe. Europe competes against the U.S. in a similar but considerably older event, the Ryder Cup.

I am not the person to bring this to life, but a giant pumpkin competition similar to described above would be a great idea.

A team leader from the U.S.A. and a team leader from the rest the world picks 10 growers each, the results are posted when the season ends.

GPC this is your chance to expand your footprint in the world of giant pumpkin growing, what do you think?

9/12/2013 12:18:46 PM

Rhode Island

owen---your thinking kinda mirrors mine. im always on the lookout for new and better ways to have meaningful competition.
im sure your suggestion will be a topic for winter meetings.

9/13/2013 6:57:45 PM

Lodi, California

I like the idea,,,, but there are 2 problems. This would make growing harder for the growers the team leaders dont pick,,, since the growers the team leaders pick will obviously be heavy hitters. This will create a gap between the heavy hitters and all of the other growers out there similar to the gap between peasents and the noble class in medieval Europe. The point being that with this system there is no middle man,,, only the best and the average. I think this would also seperate the link between the heavy hitters and the newer growers, making it a lot harder to get a grip of the hobby. This is just my opinion and I am not saying I dont want this to happen, I just think there should be more than 10 growers picked to enter this competition. I would think at least 100 growers should be allowed to participate.

9/13/2013 7:28:16 PM

Wi

Awesome Idea when does the Pumpkin Cup tee off.

9/13/2013 8:35:03 PM

That's the point. To have the best of the best going against each other. You just need a system that would allow people to earn their way onto the teams. It would give a person an incentive to pick up their skills if you wanted to make it. I beleive the pumpkin growers would still share growing methods. That's how the golfers do it.

9/13/2013 9:28:15 PM

Knopp, Germany

My idea is something that I have actually been thinking about for a few years now, just wasn't sure how to present it.

there are many ways to go about competition like this.

One way to format the team would be to have a rule where you would be forced to have someone on the team that has a personal best in a pound range, something like this:

1 - grower with heaviest PB per team
2 - 2 or 3 growers with heaviest PB between 1600 and 2000 pounds
3 - 2 or 3 growers with heaviest PB between 1400 and 1600 pounds
4 - 2 or 3 growers with heaviest PB between 1200 and 1400 pounds
5 - 2 or 3 growers with heaviest PB between 1000 and 1200 pounds
6 - 1 grower that has never gone over 1000 pounds

Doesn't have to be limited to 10 growers.

As pap said the winter is long and we have time to talk it over. I am sure there are many other great ideas that could be considered.

Lastly, I have brought this to the GPC because they are the 800 pound gorilla in our hobby and have the resources to pull this off, but, should they not like the idea then it could still be done, it would just take someone to put together some very basic and simple rules and then one grower from the USA to be a rep, and one grower from the rest of the world.

9/14/2013 2:38:32 AM

Lymington UK

Stuart mentioned this a few years ago but Europe probably didn’t have enough growers for it.
Do we have enough Guns in Europe now?
Well we are getting that way and it would be great publicity for our hobby.
Ian

9/14/2013 5:05:57 AM

Lodi, California

Ian,

If someone where to do this it wouldnt really matter how many growers you have,,, just as long as you have enough to get a broad spectrum of growers. you would then add up the weights and divide them by the number of growers to get the average.

9/14/2013 8:49:10 PM