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Claysburg , PA

Does a pumpkin receive any energy from the vine beyond ? If so how much ? Seen pictures of vines cut off after the fruit , is this ok ? Thank you

7/16/2006 9:01:45 AM

[email protected]

This has been a good question for years which remains basically unanswered. The fruit set area used to be in the 9-12 ft range, but in recent years the most desired location is out to nearly 14 and 15 ft. Steve Daletas set his WR 23 ft out and the same goes for the top 20 pumpkins of all time. There has been no fruits set inside 10 ft that are in the top 20. This would lead me to believe little benefit comes from plant past the fruit, but we all still do it for some reason without a decent case study on it's effectiveness.

3 years ago Tony Ciliberto grew a 900 pound fruit on a LLoyd 935 with nothing past the fruit at all. He cut the plant off because of wind damage to the vine and ended his main at the fruit. So can it work? Heck yes! Would I reccommend it? No, not really. I think with the ebb and flow of the juices that flows throughout the pumpkin plant and into the fruit itself (as we prove each year more and more with calcium blankets on fruits) we still need plant past the fruit. Ebb and flow concepts preach that different parts of the day the juices flow to the fruit, but in a 180 degree turn, the juices also flow out of the fruit at other parts of the day. We neeed to figure out how much of that flow comes from beyond the fruit by a few growers doing case studies.

7/16/2006 9:32:53 AM

Rexburg, Idaho ([email protected] )

We guess that the plant recieves all the energy from before the pumpkin. (not sure that I buy into that theory). But we don't really practice pruning to take advantage of that. If we did we would let our secondaries (before the pumpkin anyway) grow out the great lengths and perhaps even back main vines to get more plant mass "before" the pumpkin. But instead we preach to cut our secondaries off at 10-15 feet.
I have no idea what the correct answer is. This year I am growing double christmas tree style to get a large plant mass early in the season. I have no idea if that will correlate with a bigger pumpkin in the later season. I do know that my biggest pumpkin was grown in such a way.

7/16/2006 10:51:31 AM

sevierville, Tn

I had to cut mine just past the fruit last year due to the fruit pushing on the vine. i did so about half way to the final size. (789 lb) I saw no loss of growth. After i cut the vine I kinked the vine before the cut as one would a water hose to help stop the water loss.

7/16/2006 12:23:15 PM

Mastic Beach, New York

when in doubt i cut the main right behind the fruit(because of bad angle,short stem)

7/16/2006 1:03:06 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

I remembered a post from last year that had some solid advice from seasoned growers. The flying duchman said it best with his 958 lber on a secondary as it did not have much growth "behind the fruit" and he still ended up with an 1142 lber on the main of the same plant. Also some good comments from Joze, Nic Welty and many others along with some great explanations....read on at

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/MsgBoard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=96111

7/16/2006 2:15:58 PM

Rhode Island

green

the answer to your question is yes. its been proven many times over that if need be the fruit will be back fed should the main and or sides between the pumpkin and base get terminated, or cut off due to disease etc.

several years ago we grew a pumpkin from 350 to 919 with no base , no main up to the pumpkin. just vine after the pumpkin ,in an area of about 125 sq ft.
i would not want to do that all the time however.

some people do terminate the main just after the pumpkin because of a very bad angle off the main, tension on the stem that can not be relieved, space constraints, etc.

pap

7/16/2006 5:06:02 PM

Montoursville, PA

Our good Mother would not provide growth beyond the fruit if there was not a need, for it.

7/16/2006 10:31:48 PM

[email protected]

Do a seasrch for the word "sink" without the quotes.

We've tossed around the desire to inject tracer dyes or radio isotopes into the vascular system of an AG to trace photosynthat but no one has done it yet. Cucurbita pepo has been traced but not with respect to the forward/reverse aspect to which we now speak.

Simplified glossary:

"Sink" is anywhere energy goes. Growing points. This is why terminating vine ends & nipping off tertiary vines & redundant flowers is important after fruit set.

"Source" is the leaf canopy, roots & vascular system that is producing & transporting the good photosynthate stuff that "sinks" need to grow.

The sink/source relationship is a funny one with AG's. Without getting too technical, the plant "knows" (via signalling hormones?) where the sinks are. If we prune properly the main "sink" is the fruit. If the "source" behind the "sink" is less than ideal then the "souce" after it will "back feed". If changes in source occur in season (ie broken main, SVB damage, etc), then it is believed by many that the foliage after the fruit becomes increasingly more important.

I've seen the evidence of this as have many other growers.

7/16/2006 10:45:03 PM

Little-TON - Colorado

Tremor,
I noticed that like in Hollands DVD he suggested to truncate the vines coming off the secondardarys as not needed. Due to my hail episode this year, ( I have no leaves/ secondarys on the first 6 ' of the main) then it just takes off from there, I was thinking of leaving on the seconds on the secondarys for extra leaf/ energy growers to produce a big one. Please advise. I have limited space so my vinage looks like Spiderman.....I'll have fun just trying to find a space to set a giant, more likely its doing to be sitting on vines from the Kline

7/17/2006 9:49:47 AM