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The Garden State

We had a windy weekend here in South Jersey and the wind may have taken its toll on one of my plants. The main was just starting to vine out and I had it secured with sticks but the wind was still able to get a hold of it and snap the main.

So my question is, if the main is snapped prior to any secondaries, does that mean the plant is toast or will it produce another main in the interest of survival? I have never had a main snap at such an early stage so I would like to find an answer before I go ahead and switch in a backup plant.

5/28/2013 8:46:06 AM

Lodi, California

The plant won't make a new main, the plant is made to reproduce, not necessarily grow the largest pumpkin. The same thing happened to me and I think you should pick the strongest secondary and train it in the direction you would train your main vine. If you don't have and secondaries I guess you'll just have to start a new seed.

5/28/2013 9:58:58 AM

Eastern Pennsylvania

Crap, sorry to hear that Andy. We got punished here in Eastern PA as well, Saturday and Sunday. A picture would help but it sounds like you still have some leaves and a small chunk of main left. I'd start another couple seeds and in the mean time pray that a secondary appears at one of the close leaf nodes that hasn't shown itself yet.

5/28/2013 5:48:56 PM

Upa Creek, MO

Not an AG, but my first year with a garden ever (2009), I had some field pumpkin plants about 2 feet out that got hammered with hail and all I literally had left were nubs out of the ground. They were rooted enough to shoot out a new vine within a week. The plant doesn't know what a main is, so whatever it gives you from that base area you could treat as a new main. Just my 2 cents and good luck.

5/28/2013 6:00:31 PM

Lloydminster/AB

That happened to me too, I lost my field pumpkin vine once, broke off completely at ground level. It sprouted a new vine and I grew a 145 on it. I'm not sure about AGs but give it a couple of weeks, who knows what could happen.

5/28/2013 10:06:25 PM

The Garden State

Thanks for the help guys and the sharing of your past experiences. That is what I was hoping to hear.
I will give it a couple days and see what happens. The weather for the next few days will be in the upper 80's so that should be conducive to growing. I will hit it with a little extra nitrogen as well to stimulate some growth.
It just sucks since I thought that I had taken proper precautions with staking the plant down...not like this is my first ride in the rodeo.

5/29/2013 7:25:23 AM

Hamilton Nj

that hard north west wind is brutial hear,my tomatos got ruined restarting them again,hope everything works out for u!! pizzapete

5/30/2013 8:27:41 PM