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Santa Cruz, CA

What day past pollination do you start measuring your newly started pumpkin?

7/12/2006 2:20:16 AM

Cameron,ontario Team Lunatic

10 days

7/12/2006 6:48:32 AM

Minnesota([email protected])

Just for curiosity's sake, I started on day 5 on my first pollination. It's at day 9 now, last few days have been 2-3" circ. gain.

7/12/2006 8:29:41 AM

Santa Cruz, CA

Are you just measuring circumference or doing the OTT measurment?

7/12/2006 10:19:28 AM

Lake Elmo, Minnesota

At this early stage, I think circumference only is adequate. It still gives a good gauge for how many inches growth per day and it doesn't matter whether the pumpkin weighs 18 pounds or 25 pounds.

7/12/2006 10:43:54 AM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

Day of Polination is day 0

7/12/2006 12:33:32 PM

Danville, CA ([email protected])

To be clear then. If I pollinated on July 1 then I should measure at the end of July 11 to get my 10 day size...correct? The rest would then follow.

7/12/2006 1:01:23 PM

[email protected]

Correct.

7/12/2006 1:12:39 PM

Santa Cruz, CA

Ok, now you're going along measuring every few days and Aug. 1st comes along and you need to make a decision on which pumpkin to keep. What's the logic people go through in deciding on the final pumpkin.

7/12/2006 2:11:20 PM

Montoursville, PA

There are as many answers, to the last post, as there are growers. The rule, of thum I believe is, to simply go with the best looking and fastest growing one you have.

If this is your first year and you want, to assure a better chance, to finish one you might leave two, on the plant. Lots, of exciting things can happen along the growing trail.

7/12/2006 2:23:51 PM

Santa Cruz, CA

Do you always pick a pumpkin on the main vine?

7/12/2006 2:27:46 PM

San Luis Obispo, Ca.

I have a OTT of 70 at day 12. Seems small? Dop not have anything to compare to? Chart does not even go that small. At this rate, how big will she be in 80 days?

7/12/2006 4:15:47 PM

San Jose [email protected]

Main vine is the best, but lots of people lose their main, and grow big ones too

7/12/2006 5:11:34 PM

San Jose [email protected]

skid, last year I started out at day 10 on track for 1000lbs, day 11 I was behind, I ended up with about 125lbs, there is no way to tell how big your punkin will get to be. Good luck

7/12/2006 5:13:27 PM

Indiana

Not correct Tremor! LOL

If you pollinated July 1, it would have been in the MORNING, so you should measure somewhere between 6 and 8 am on the 11th. If you measure at night, you can inflate your measurement a few inches which when compared statistically here would for example be the difference between 800 and 1000 lbs. My best 10 day measurement was 30 inches, and everything that has ever reached 28 Inches for me has been over 900 pounds except for 1. Nothing under 26 inches has grown over 800 for me. So you can see that if you have a lot of info, you can guess where your pumpkin is going. Thats why its important to measure at the same time every day so you increments are consistant. If one days is 18 hours, and the next is 30 hours nothign will make sense.

Joze and I talked about it in the past, we like to see measurements at least every 5 days. OTT starting at day 30. Day 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, etc. By day 20, you should know if your on your way to a monster of if its tailing off.

This may be a bit different for different regions.

7/12/2006 6:36:21 PM

Owensboro, Ky.

Petman, 24 hrs after pollination will be 1 day, or day 1...48 hrs will be day 2...just like 1 year after you were born you celebrated your 1st birthday...make sense??? ie...I pollinated on the (early morning) 28th of June...today (early morning)...day 14...41" circ, 30" ftb, 28" sts, 99" total ott = 27.9#...Grow 'em big Peace, Wayne
ps...day 10 was 26" circ.

7/12/2006 7:31:18 PM

Rhode Island

we dont get all hung up on ten day measurements. not enough pumpkin to really get excited about.
we usually start around day 20 and measure once a week there after.
to many growers get hung up on measuring every or every other or every couple days. to much of a yo-yo effect.a measurement can be off a little one day and get you excited or have you scratching your head. better to wait 20 days then give her hell/
your eyes will tell you which is doing well and which is not.
when culling to that one on the main we never let measurement be the only deciding factor. usually its shape, position, distance from base ( minimum 12 )then size compared to anything else on that main. as long as its a 4-5-6 seg we dont concern ourselves with number of segments either when making a final decision.
pap

7/12/2006 10:42:44 PM

Minnesota([email protected])

Sounds like good advice pap. I just don't seem to have the patience to wait till day 20. After day ten, I'll try and measure every 5 days. I don't know if I can hold off measuring that longLOL.

7/12/2006 11:36:25 PM

Santa Cruz, CA

What if you have a really large pumpkin pollinated early on a secondary and only two much smaller pumpkins on the main pollinated two weeks later. You must wait until Aug. 1st to see but what if the secondary is doing really well what then?

7/13/2006 12:59:56 AM

Danville, CA ([email protected])

As long as I am consistent, I will pick the right one. Really only matters what it is at the end...right? LOL.

I do in the morning as getting home in time after work is tricky. I think I will do 10, 20 and then 5-7 day increments.

Creekside, it is all in the feel you get. As a newbie I was worried, but if you look at some of the old posts and diary entries of some good growers you will see that some of their culls are beachball sized so there seems to be time to think about it.

7/13/2006 2:00:28 AM

Rhode Island

if you truely want to give yourself the best chance for a large fruit you really should be either on the main or on a secondary that you turned /pruned into a main.

we dont ever pollinate side vine pumpkins. just pinch them off as soon as they appear and forget they were ever there.

having said that, i also realize some growers have only a couple plants and dont want to run the risk of ending up with nothing. consider this though. would you rather have a later fruit on the main ? or a side pumpkin ? if it came to that? express road or breakdown lane?

pap

7/13/2006 5:41:52 AM

[email protected]

Tom said:

"Not correct Tremor! LOL

If you pollinated July 1, it would have been in the MORNING, so you should measure somewhere between 6 and 8 am on the 11th."

This is correct enough if the grower uses the same time every day to record measurments. But if we're going to split the hair of 12 hours of the slowest growth then I agree that July 11th at 6PM is really day 10.5. In reality, Day 10 would be at the same time of day the pollination takes place.

I personally have never recorded any growth between a 6AM pollination & 6PM the same day. I can't say it doesn't happen. Just never bothered checking.

7/13/2006 7:54:52 AM

Rhode Island

go tremor go lol

7/13/2006 5:04:33 PM

SF Bay Area, California

Forget most pumpkins on side vines. The real question is which pumpkin on the main should I keep? Pumpkins growing on the first few side vines will slow down the fruit downstream on the main once they get around 30" circ or so... I've seen this several times.

Cut the early side vine pumpkins off or lose final weight on your keepers on the main. Pumpkins on the first few side vines will grow quickly at first but will not have the follow-through at 30 to 50 days that the pumpkins on the main have.

Don't wait until Aug to make up your mind.....

7/13/2006 7:31:31 PM

Santa Cruz, CA

Ok, so tomorrow morning Riley and I will go and cull all the pumpkins we started except those on the main vine. We will cull probably 50 pumpkins. No more side vine females will be pollinated only trimmed off as they appear. This all makes sense and next year we will start with this philosophy and make our pollination work much easier. We have 1 to 4 pumpkins on all 7 of our main vines with more to come. I'm hoping we are safe for at least a few pumpkins. The good news in all this extra pollination is we know how to pollinate really well now. It's so nice learning all this now so we don't have to take another season to learn that we should have culled the smaller pumpkins earlier. Thanks every one for your help!

7/14/2006 1:01:32 AM