Sunday, July 15, 2012

Giant Pumpkin Weight Estimation & Growth Benchmarks

You can get a good estimate of how much your giant pumpkin weighs with just a few measurements.  The measurements are call Over The Top (OTT) measurements.  After you have your measurements you can use this pumpkin weight chart to get an estimate for how much the pumpkin weighs.  The chart doesn't know how thick the meat of your pumpkin is so that is why this is an estimate, but usually you can get within 5% accuracy of the weight of the pumpkin.

This video will show you how to make the measurements:

This pumpkin growth benchmark chart can give you an idea of how your pumpkin is charting as compared to pumpkins that have weighed over 1,000+ pounds.  The chart is just a benchmark and particularly in the first 20 days of growth any measurement doesn't mean much.  My 20 day measurement last year was two inches bigger then the former world record 1,725 pound pumpkin's measurement on the same day.  That pumpkin was one of the slowest in the patch for Christy that year but around day 30 the pumpkin finally got into gear and never looked back.  At about day 20 you should start seeing some increases in size and at about 28 the growth per day should be very noticeable (25-40 pounds per day would be typical from day 30 to day 40) if you have a good pumpkin.

There is an iPhone app, if you are interested, that does the weight calculations for you based on your measurements in the iTunes store.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jamie,

Thank you for the response and the video. I've seen the weight chart but wasn't real sure how it was done with the explanations given. The video cleared that right up and I ran right out and took my measurements. As I said in my first post I'm at day 12 and my measurements came to a total of 85.
I covered my pumpkin with a 4 post hut and a white sheet to keep the sun @ bay right after I noticed that it happened. The sunburn probably isn't to bad considering that we were hitting record temperatures. It probably should have been fried. The burn has healed over and the pumpkin is still growing. We got a little bit of rain last night which was nice to see here in Michigan. Were in part of the drought stricken as well. I'll start working on misting the leaves and keep this plant fueling the pumpkin along.

Thank you again

Jim

Anonymous said...

Great Chart thanks