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Location

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Date Posted

Snoqualmie, Wash.

I took my 1114 Lishness to the state fair. It measured out at 372 and weighted in at 462. I'm guessing at 23% heavy. Any pumpkins make this kind of % heavy. Jerri

9/13/2006 12:29:45 AM

Salmon Arm, BC

very nice going Jerri! Proud of you! Deb

9/13/2006 12:33:33 AM

Santa Cruz, CA

Our 1180 Daletas had an OTT measurment of 297" and weighed 630lbs. (@20 percent heavy) I thought that was heavy but wow, your 114 Lishness sure went heavy. I'm interested to learn if that is normal heavy or over the top heavy too.

9/13/2006 1:25:40 AM

ENGLAND

The smaller the Pumpkins are, when doing an Est and then weighing, the higher the chances are that they will weigh "Heavy to Est" I think 500 Lb's is the point at which the Est to actual Weight percentages really kick in.

Regards
Mike

9/13/2006 6:08:00 AM

[email protected]

That is very true MIke. The 837 Waller plant that Kevin Brown used to pollenate his 1007 with had a fruit on it that weighed 370 pounds and was only supposed to weigh 180. It was double the charts and when cut open it had no cavity inside, it was a complete solid fruit, almost looked like a cantelope! Mike is correct in his assessment.

Still, congrats on a huge fruit!

9/13/2006 6:46:59 AM

Beach Park, IL.

I hope mine goes heavy and weighs out 400. It is est. 392 now. How do you measure the percentage from the est. weight to the actual weight. It's been so long ago when I learned that stuff.

9/13/2006 9:01:51 AM

Danville, CA ([email protected])

I believe the formula for heavy should be

(actual weight - estimated weight) / estimated weight = % heavy

9/13/2006 9:44:01 AM

Pocatello ([email protected])

I think if we want to take weight breeding to the next level, we need to start tracking data on wall thickness. This can be difficult, of course, as the walls have different thicknesses in different places, and you can't get the data until the fruit is cut.

But wall thickness could be a better indicator of weight potential than "percent heavy", as we all use different charts and I could measure OTT 10 times and get a different measurement each time.......

9/13/2006 3:44:53 PM

Pocatello ([email protected])

About the smaller pumpkins not being true to the chart, I want to repeat my plea to all of you wonderful souls who do the number crunching... make a piece-wise table. That is, you have coordinates, maybe four, and with this you try to hit everything from 200 to 1500. What we ought to do is make a set of numbers that is accurate from 200 to 600, another for 600 to 1000, and another for 1000 and up.

Don't worry, this actually makes each set of equations easier to solve, and once it's entered into your spreadsheet the computer solves it. It should be transparent to the user.

9/13/2006 3:58:16 PM

Mocksville, NC

Cliff, has a very good point, and i personaly am going to track these, and make a plea to growers when the time comes for cutting if they would post overall wall thickness. in there diarys or in comments on AGGC.
Ill do the same. Roger

9/13/2006 5:41:37 PM

San Diego

good points by everyone. I also think "where" you grow has a big difference on "percent heavy" too, the climate. My 1180 this year was 18% heavy to the 2003 chart and it was a large enough fruit to be valid. Normally in San Diego I go by the 2001 chart because I always go way light even to the 2003 chart. So you can imagine how shocked I was to go 18% over on the 2003 chart in the hottest summer in the history of where I live. I definitely plan to use my seeds and cross with since this fruit showed the rare occurance of big and very heavy in super high heat conditions. The average temp was 100, topped out at 113, 114, cool day was 94. Jim

9/13/2006 6:58:21 PM

Butler, Ohio

I'll chime in on this one too. We just weighed a pumpkin at the local street fair that was taping 115 circ and only supposed to weigh 392 est. Instead when it hit the scales weighed in at 577#. So I would venture to say Mike and Cliff have a very valid point. That these "smaller" fruits are very much still solid inside, as they have not yet reached their full growth potential.

9/14/2006 10:29:51 AM

Pocatello ([email protected])

Yeah, I wish we could make this work, the wall thickness tracking, that is. I think it's going to take a monumental effort, however. It would be one thing to add this data into AGGC. I think that might be the easy part. The harder part would be to make up a standardized method for measuring. I have to admit, I don't know where to begin...

I think if we all take a good hard look at the fruits as we cut them up this year, keep a ruler (yardstick?) handy and think about how to "compare apples to apples", maybe we can come up with something.

Another factor, I bet wall thickness diminishes a bit after the fruit is cut. It collapses and compacts... slowly at first. But if one has been on display in front of the house for a month, it should be different from the day it was cut. Sigh.

9/14/2006 6:02:19 PM