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Brighton, Mi.

when training your vines in this pattern how long to you let your 1st 2 secondaries grow? How long should you let the last couple of secondaries grow?
what is the ideal total square footage when using this pattern?

Thanks for your imput

6/20/2006 10:35:50 PM

[email protected]

Most folks (if they have the room) won't terminate a secondary before 12 feet.

There will always be exceptions but 400 sq ft seems to be a commonly held "ideal" if the weight statistics are to be believed.

24" width across the bottom (first secondaries) by about 20' long but the last secondary vines stop growing once a fruit get's trucking so they never make the full width.

6/20/2006 11:09:36 PM

Brighton, Mi.

Thank you Tremor, I appreciate the reply.

i have plenty of room, I can let all my secondaries go until the quit growing, but get tired of taking care of them. I thought i would try the xmas tree pattern to reduce my plant size and work load.

6/20/2006 11:30:01 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

It would be better to terminate the secondaries at some point. Years ago growers thought we needed 1200 sq ft per plant. Reduction of plant sizes have increased the pumpkin sizes. Once a healthy plant has attained 500 to 600 sq ft there is more then enough energy to get a large pumpkin. With the vine terminated the energy that was used to grow vines will be redirected to storage to the pumpkin. GrowEmBig! Chuck

6/21/2006 7:44:23 AM

Simi valley, ca

last yr i used a christmass tree pattern, tucked back a bit which is spider patern,, but first secondarys were over 16 ft ea ,total width 32 ft , then secondarys by pumpkin were 12 ft ea or so ONLY because i have weird shape patch ,At the end of yr the only ones with any leaves left are the last ones, most people termanate first ones to put the power into the pumpkin by that time !! lots of people belive its importante to get the ones by pumpkin out far !! my only problem is that pumpkin grew too fast 35 lbs a day then 46 overnight & boom !!!

6/21/2006 10:01:50 AM

Nashville, TN

Hmm.. I may have to rethink my plans on when to let my plants set fruit... Do to strict 'space per plant' in my patch - I'm letting many secondaries grow to 4-5' - burying them every 2' for root zone development.. then terminating the secondary into another root zone. I'm snaking the main - burying it at every direction change (another root zone)...

Had planned to allow fruit set when the vine completely filled and outgrew a 10X10 - with over a dozen root zones... But the way some of these vines are growing - I could easily have some 20X20 with 3 dozen root zones within 2-3 more weeks!!

So after I allow fruit set - I should terminate the main into another root zone?

6/21/2006 11:52:59 AM