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Saugerties N. Y.

when do pumpkins typically grow better. day/ night or is it weather conditions durning the course of the day that
play a major factor. just wondering

8/22/2005 11:07:55 PM

Canada

I find that pumpkins grow dureing the night.

8/22/2005 11:25:51 PM

Lake Elmo, Minnesota

I've found that at least 75% growth takes place at night.

8/23/2005 12:51:29 PM

Pocatello ([email protected])

I think 75% is about right. It would be an interesting study,
for someone to be very precise in measuring... to measure
every day at 7:00am and 7:00pm... and also plot temperatures
and weather conditions... perhaps a more accurate method of
measuring would be needed (depending on where I put the tape,
I can gain or loose 3 or 4 inches anytime)...

I've seen someone actually grow on a scale, or four scales...
To do that, log all weather data, and log all weight gains,
now that would be interesting!

8/23/2005 5:59:47 PM

Thornhill, Ontario, Canada

I wonder if you could measure all growth in real time. There must be some kind of distance sensor that could be hooked up to a computer to log the data. I played with some similar stuff in one of my courses at school.

Maybe it could be fitted to some sort of band around the circumference so that it could measure the expansion there on a continual basis. Maybe the sensor would only need to be able to measure from something like 0-10" and then the band around the circumference could be readjusted at the same time every day.

8/23/2005 6:31:34 PM

Thornhill, Ontario, Canada

Ooooh! A laser! Or, sonar! Both could be used without even having to touch the pumpkin.

8/23/2005 6:32:45 PM

Saugerties N. Y.

Thanks for feed back so far, over the years of growing pumpkins I myself thought pumpkins grow more at night
due to the fact of taking measurements several times a day
early morning to to later that night. The biggest gains always came at night even when optimum growing conditions occured during the day. So should we or can trick the pumpkin to think that it's night time more hours of the day by keeping it in the dark, or am I in the dark on this one.

8/23/2005 9:02:09 PM

Pumpkins grow more during the night! During the day the plant is working on building energy. As the leaves like solar panels collect sunlight and turn it into energy during the day, as the sun sets and the temperature drops the plant switches from energy building mode to energy storing mode. All the energy the plant made from the day is stored in the pumpkin mostly at night, but during the day it does store a bit as well. If you think about it, the plant needs time to make sugars. In the morning the sun is not as strong, so let say it's 8 in the morning the sun is just up, and the plant just starts to make sugars, as sugars are made it begins transporting the sugars to the storage area. This takes time, because there isn't a 100 psi pump in there moving the stuff. As the sun gets to it's peak intensity around 1 o'clock production is at it's top, the sugars from 8 in the morning are probably just reaching the stem of the pumpkin let say 5 hours later. As the day ends and night falls at 9 o'clock, whatever production was made during peak hours of the afternoon is now being stored in the pumpkin. Through out the night whatever happened earlier is stored. As you move back into the morning growth slows as the production of the plant slowed earlier.

My 5 hours is just a high in the sky guess and with this entire answer as well. But it does make good sense. The production to storage stage could be a mere 1 hour apart to maybe even 24 hours.

8/23/2005 9:36:02 PM

Something I noticed when I measured daily (during the evening) is that whatever the day was before, that was the kind of growth that happened. So if yesterday was very hot and sunny (a bad growing day) that night the pumpkin grew slowly. During the day you measured it was a beautiful day for growth, cool and sunny, but as you measure in the evening the growth was crappy. That's because the day before was bad, the night would have been bad or good depending on the day before yesterday, leading to a bad measurment today. But since you had a good day today, tommorow evening measurment should be really good. This is just what I have noticed though. If you understood this, than congradulations, if you didn't try reading again, haha. Thanks and Good luck with the harvesting!

8/23/2005 9:43:33 PM

Pocatello ([email protected])

I had to read it a few times, but thanks anyway!

Tracking weather and specific weight gains would be
interesting. I saw a grower one time grow directly on a
pallet, with a scale at each corner. If you think about
it, this can be really accurate. Find some cheap scales
at a second-hand store...

8/24/2005 12:44:33 AM