Pumpkin Pollination Time; I'm a Pumpkin Grower Again

Since I didn't grow last year, it has been some time since I was a giant pumpkin grower.  Today I had my first pollination.  The female flower showed up at 10 feet on the 747 Johnson plant.   This plant is my "better" looking plant of my two plants and has been a descent grower, so the stars aligned for this pollination.  

The female flower didn't overly orange up yesterday so I wasn't completely sure if it would open today.   I went to check for male flowers to pollinate with and could only fine one male flower that looked like it might open today and could only fine one (fortunately it only takes one) and I wasn't 100% sure it was going to be ready to open.  The male flowers on my 1685 plants aren't overly big.   Some plants I've had in the past have had monster flowers and it was obvious when they were going to open.   So I was a little nervous if I was going to have any pollen available.  Normally I cut the male flower off the evening before and put it is some water to keep the bees from getting at it and to keep it from getting wet from the irrigation, but this time I kept it on the vine and rubber banded it closed.

For the female, I put a little mesh sack over it the evening before and I kept the irrigation off in the morning so it doesn't get wet.   The female did open this morning and the male flower was ready to open so everything worked out.  The female was a four lobe, which is what I prefer and seemed pretty symmetrical. 

After pollinating, I put the mesh bag back on the female and then put a plastic sack over the flower and watered the plant.

This is the earliest pollination I've ever had.  I'd have to check, but I don't think I've ever pollinated before June 15th before, so we are somewhat a head of schedule.   106 days until picking time!

As you can see in the picture, I've got lawn chair over the pumpkin.  That helps keep it dry and cool.  I put the chair over the pumpkin a week before and typically I don't have troubles with pollinations taking, so I think that helps some.

You'll also notice I have sand below the pumpkin. As the pumpkin grows and lays down that gives a soft spot for the pumpkin to grow on and allows the pumpkin to easily slide as it grows.  It also helps drain water away quickly so the pumpkin doesn't rot out.

The 747 Johnson is 1985 Miller x 282 Scherber.   The 1985 Miller has grown a number of giant pumpkins including some monsters over 2,000 pounds.  Unfortunately my 1985 did not, but it was my own fault.  My 1985 plant was a fantastic looking plant, but an irrigation problem that went on for more than a week and wasn't caught nearly killed the plant.  The pumpkin stopped/nearly stopped growing.  I got the problem fixed but the damage was done.   Prior to the problems the pumpkin was cranking.  It never fully recovered by kept growing to be a mis-shapened little thing.   I got it to the scale and to my surprise it went 19% heavy.  Now I wonder what could have been.  That pumpkin was only just verily behind in measurements my personal best pumpkin from two years before and that pumpkin went 18% light.   You never know, but maybe it could have ended up over 1,500 pounds, but you never know.

The 282 Shcerber plant is a selfed clone of the plant that grew the world record 2009 pumpkin.  It is probably the greatest pumpkin ever because it broke the one ton barrier and most all of the top 10 biggest pumpkins that have ever been grown have come from this plant.

The pollinator that I used on the 747 plant this morning is the 1685 Scherber (800 McMullen x 2145 McMullen).  Remember how I said that almost all of the top 10 biggest pumpkins ever grown came from that 2009 pumpkin?    The other two came from the 2145 and that includes the current world record pumpkin.   The 800 McMullen is an under planted seed that is the reverse cross of the 2145 McMullen (AKA same parents).   So genetically the 1685 is very, very similar in its genetic lines to the 2145.  What I like about this cross is that the genetic lines for the 747 and 1685 are very different, so helpfully I'm bringing two great lines together to make something even better.

Pictured here is the 747 plant.  It would be a very nice looking plant, expect for the wind we have here in Midway has been beating it up something terrible.  Silt fences help, but the leaves are getting thrashed.

The Best Seed Starting Mix for Giant Pumpkin Seeds

Sometimes I get asked what I use for my seed starting mixture.  If you dig deep enough into this blog you'll see that I've done testing with different seed start mixtures.   I prefer a soil less mixture.  Some of the best genetic pumpkin seeds can be hard to come by so I prefer a medium other than soil so I can be sure that no pathogens are in the mixture.  Pro Mix BX is my favorite seed starting mixture, but so far it has been hard to find in Utah.  I had one bag, but that wasn't enough for my two pots, so I'm trying coco hair this time in a couple of pots, which I've read good thing about.  

In my pots I'll add some humic acid, NPK Industries Microbes Grow formula and this year I also added some Lebanon Turf Roots (I bought it for the landscaping plants I've started indoors).   In those two substances there is a good mixture of myco and beneficial bacteria along with micro amounts of different nutrients.   I don't put any fertilizer in the pots.   Everything the plant will need for three weeks are in the seed starting mixture and fertilizer is not necessary.  I won't give the pumpkin plants any fertilizer until they are planted outdoors in the soil.  Actually I do give the plants some diluted kelp in the pots, but that is about it.

2017 Giant Pumpkin Seed Lineup

This year I've got three/four different seeds in the lineup.   I'm going to grow a 1685 Scherber and my own 747 Johnson Atlantic Giant pumpkin seed.  Last year a new world record was grown off of the 2145 McMullen seed that was a whopping 2,624 pounds.   The was a significant increase over the previous world record and I wouldn't be surprised if the world record wasn't broken this year because of it.  

The 1685 seed is a cross of the 800 McMullen with the 2145 McMullen.  The 800 McMullen is a seed that is lower on the radar, but it is the reverse cross of the 2145 (same mama and papa).   So basically the cross of the 1685 is all the same genetic lines of the 2145.   The 1685 set a new Colorado state record by a fair amount and since it was grown at altitude and it nearly went to chart (Joe's big pumpkins almost never go near the chart) it is a pretty intriguing seed.  I and one of my kids are both going to grow this seed.

My 747 seed is a cross of the 1985 Miller with the 282 Scherber.   That 1985 plant was the best looking plant I had ever had early in the season.  For the first three weeks the pumpkin was just verily off the pace of my 1421 pumpkin that was a super fast grower and it ended up 15% heavy, so weight wise it was probably heavier than the 1421 at the first part of the season.  The problem was that I didn't realize that the plant for two weeks was only getting about 25% of the water that it should have due to an irrigation timer problem and as a result the plant nearly shut down.   For a day or two the pumpkin didn't show any signs of growth and once I discovered the problem it was almost too late.   

The 282 Scherber pollinator is a selfed clone of the plant that grew the world-record 2009 pumpkin.   The first pollination on that plant was a barn burner for the first week, but a hernia in one of the lobes badly mis-shapened the pumpkin so I had to take it off.  The second pollination aborted due to the watering problems and a late season third pollination split on me.  The plant was badly damaged due to the lack of water.  

Kind of a risk growing a seed from plants that really produced nothing, but I like the genetics and a saw glimpses of what the plants could have produced so I kind of feel it is worth the try.  I also like the 1725 genetics in this seed because they are coming from the very best of the 1725 lines.   

My son or daughter will grow one of the Barron seeds.  We'll start the 1916 and the 1738 seed.  Both seeds progeny to this point have been a little disappointing considering the cross, but I kind of believe there has to be one super star, magic seed out of that cross still.   Mom and pop did too well not for a big one to come out of them.  Also wouldn't mind seeing a nice orange pumpkin in the patch.

Tips for Giant Pumpkin Seed Starting

Soak the seed(s) in mildly warm water with a drop of seaweed (optional) and a little humic acid (optional) to help them germinate. After 3-4 hours of soaking transfer the seeds to lightly moistened paper towels that will be folded around the seeds and put into Ziploc bags. The Ziploc bags will then be placed at the back part of my computer where it is usually about 85 degrees. An ideal temperature for pumpkin seed starting is between 85 to 90 degrees. In 24 to 48 hours a little root will come out of the bottom of the seed and at that time I will transfer the seeds to my seed starting mixture in peat pots.







If you prefer, after soaking the seeds you can transfer the seed to a pot with a seed starting mixture rather than using the paper towel method.  The soil should be lightly moist and the pot should be in a warm place (80 degrees) to help germinate the seed.  the pointy part of the seed should be facing down as that is where the tap root will come out.

For my seed starting mixture I use 80% ProMix BX with some earth worm castings (optional) and some mycorrhizae (optional beneficial fungi) and Azos (optional beneficial bacteria). About 2-5 days  after putting the seeds in the pots they will start popping through the soil (can take up to 10 days if conditional aren't ideal). I put my pots in a closet with grow lights and a space heater in them so I can keep the plants at about 85 degrees. About two weeks later I'll plant them in the pumpkin patch inside hoop houses.  Anytime the weather is nice and not windy I'll put the plants outdoors so they can get sun.  No grow lights will do as well as the sun.

Growing Giant Pumpkins at Altitude

This will be my first season growing in Midway, Utah.  But having growing in Denver for years at an altitude that is only about 200 feet lower than most of the Heber Valley, it won't be much different as far as technique goes, although the average temperatures are about 5 degrees cooler on average.  The following are some tips for growing giant pumpkins above 4,000 feet in altitude.

Seed Starting
Start your seeds indoors in a warm area that gets lots of light.  Supplemental light and heat would be a good thing.   Start the plant in a pot that will give the roots room to grow.  Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds roots grow really fast.   A one gallon pot will have roots top to bottom in two weeks.  Usually I start my seeds around April 15th.  For competition pumpkins that is required to give the plant enough time to grow.  For the more casual grower, maybe start your seeds around May 1st.

Planting in the Pumpkin Patch
I'll put out hoop houses (little green houses) a week or more before I plant outdoors to help warm the soil.   Plants don't like cold soil.  The first week of May, depending on the weather, I'll plant my pumpkin plants in the patch inside the hoop houses.  At night I'll add a 100 watt incandescent bulb, space heater or heat lamp in the hoop house to give a heat source for the plant and put a tarp or blanket over the hoop house.  The hoop house warms up very quickly in the sun (like a car with the windows rolled up in summer) during the day, but inside the hoop house by midnight it will be nearly the same temperature indoors as outdoors, so some sort of heat needs to be added or else the plants could freeze or not grow as quickly as they should.

I keep a little wireless thermometer in the hoop house and as soon as I see it hit around 85-88 degrees I open the flaps up.  I try to maintain a temperature between 85-90 degrees as much as I can.  I don't like to let it get over about 91 degrees.

Pumpkin Plant Vining
If you start your seeds on April 15th and the plant is happy, the vines will start to grow around the middle of May.   By the first week of June the vines are growing fast and typically my plants are out of the hoop house.  By this time of year there shouldn't be much risk for frost so the plant should be okay until September.

Grow em big!

Greenhouse Geo Thermal Heating & Cooling for Giant Pumpkin Growing

Now I wouldn't purport to be an expert on setting up a geo thermal heating and cooling system in a greenhouse, but after watching a number of videos, reading blog posts and talking with some people I feel like a know enough to do what I want to accomplish.  What is a geo thermal heating and cooling system?  Basically it is a way to use the earth to heat and cool air in order to heat and cool a greenhouse or some other space.  Living in Midway, Utah now, I have challenges with temperatures that come with living in a mountain valley at 5,600 feet.  I'm actually only about 200 feet higher than where I was at in Denver, but the average day time temperature is about 5 degrees cooler during the day and night and that makes a big difference, particularly with giant pumpkins.  45-55 degree nights is not ideal for packing on the pounds.  It makes for nice sleeping however.

So what I have to do is make the pumpkin plants think they are in Napa Valley, Ohio or Rhode Island.  The greenhouse I will build will help with that.  That will help warm the plants up more quickly in the early morning and will get the humidity up a little.  It doesn't do much to keep the plants warm at night however.

The corrugated pipe that you see in the picture below were buried about 2 1/2 feet down in the ground.  One one end of the pipes will have a tube that will go up to the top of the green house and it will have an inline fan hooked to a thermostat that will blow the hot air down into the tubes at a high enough volume to circulate the air volume in the greenhouse.  When the air goes down into the ground it will warm the soil, which is great for the roots and will get the biology in the soil going.  In return the air will be cooled by the earth as it passes through the pipes and then will be blown into the greenhouse, cooling the air in the greenhouse.  In all of my research, this is the most efficient way to heat and cool a greenhouse.  If it were up to me I'd heat the greenhouse at night with a propane heater (i.e.expensive), but my wife is mean and won't let me.  Lol

I also mention that this system will also heat the greenhouse.   Another thermostat will kick on during the night, when it gets too cool and the reverse will happen.  Cooler air will be blown into the pipes and will be heated up by the earth, that has stored the heat from the heat of the day and on the other end, warmer air will be blown out.

I've also purchased an number of soon to be black water barrels that will be on the southwest side of the greenhouse.  Those will soak up heat during the day and then at night will release the heat into the greenhouse.  The guy I bought the barrels from, who has a greenhouse, said he has checked the temperature of the water in the barrels during the day and 85 degrees is pretty common for him.

All of this together I hope will make for some giant pumpkins in 2017.

What to Do When Your Pumpkin Isn't Growing As Fast As You Would Like

This is one of the things that all growers struggle with when a pumpkin isn't growing as fast as they like.  There are a number of factors that can contribute to slow growth.  Some can be fixed and others cannot.  Genetic factors of course can't be fixed.  Some pumpkins just want to grow slow.  The smallest pumpkin I ever grew was right next to the pumpkin plant that grew my biggest pumpkin ever and both plants got the same amount of water, fertilizer, etc.  

If you don't want to go to the expense of doing a tissue test to find out what the plant has and needs, then trying to give the plants a little more fertilizer isn't a bad idea.  These plants are heavy feeders and they can "bonk," because although there might be a lot of nutrients in the soil sometimes it is locked up or just out of the reach of the roots. 

Doing small, divided doses of additional fertilizer may not be a bad idea, but spoon feed and see how the plant reacts.  Be patient with it.  Over doing it, even slightly, can sometimes have a negative effect on the growth of the pumpkin.  Doing it this way will probably give you better results.

To figure out what the plant needs take a look at the color and growth of the plant.  Potassium can help push the pumpkin along, but low nitrogen or other nutrients can also limit pumpkin growth.  Slow and steady wins the race in pumpkin growing.  So look at everything that could be a limiting factor and do small tests to see what yields you the best results.

Compost Tea & TKO for the Pumpkin Plants

I watched a very interesting video today on soil biology from growuniversity.net.  If you haven't schedule yourself to attend one of the growuniversity.net webinars do so.  They are very well done.

After watch the video I went out and gave both plants some aerated compost tea that I had been brewing for 36 hours.  The plants should like that.

This evening I gave the 282 Scherber plant some TKO.  That should help the plant push the pumpkin along. It is 11 days old now and growing fairly well.  It had the same day 10 measurement as my big pumpkin had two years ago.  Doesn't mean anything, but you would rather have it bigger than small.  The unfortunate thing with this pumpkin is that it will just be starting to pack on the pounds when we go into September.  Colorado's Septembers can have very sketchy weather.  Typically not snow, but cool fall like weather will slow the pumpkin down when it is really starting to grow.

1985 pumpkin is having problems and I'm not sure why.  Growth has fallen off.  No signs of disease yet and the vines are still growing well, but not seeing the kind of giant pumpkin growth that I would have expected from this plant.

Nitrogen for the Giant Pumpkin Plants

This evening I did a soil application of nitrogen.  Most of the application was to the 1985 plant since I just recently pollinated the 282 plant.  On the ground I sprayed a mixture of RAW Nitrogen, RAW Cal/Mag and RAW Omina in spoon feeding quantities.  I saw how fast acting the RAW Nitrogen was this spring and I don't want a big spike in growth at this stage.  However, I do want to make sure the plants have adequate nitrogen to power growth for the pumpkins and I've given the plants very little nitrogen over the last month.

To the right is a picture of both plants.  In the far distance you can see the tarp that is covering the 1985 pumpkin.

Some Multi-mineral for the Pumpkin Plant

Okay, this is one of those boring posts.  Did a foliar application of multi-mineral on both plants.  Blah, blah, blah, blah.  The reality is that part of pumpkin growing is being consistent and giving the plants what they need when they need it.

Had a really interesting conversation with Bryant of urbanfarmcolorado.com on that very topic.  If you ever want a fantastic raised garden installed (or any other type of garden for that matter), Bryant is your man.  Outside of a select group of giant pumpkin growers and soil scientists, Bryant knows about as much about growing as anyone.  The cool thing is that he isn't afraid to think out of the box and try new things.  He has some interesting ideas that he has the wheels turning on for plant and soil testing for optimal fertilization.  If he can get the ideas to work I'm the first one in line to buy the contraption.

Thanks Joe & Lisa! Finally a Pumpkin Pic.

I've been in Canada for the last 8 days with my wife's family having a very nice time, but missing the pumpkins.  Joe was good enough to watch my plants again while I was gone and did some pollinations for me while I was away.  Very grateful for that.  My sister also helped with watering the plants in my absence.  A big thanks to both of them for their help.

The 1985 plant ran wild while I was gone.  Vines have popped up all over the place.  I was expecting that.  After terminating most of the plant, the stump had a lot of new growth popping up prior to my leaving and although I took all of that off before going out of town I knew that plant was looking for places to put all of its stored energy.  I'm hoping it can focus that energy into pumpkin growing and if it does we should be good shape.

This is the 1985 pumpkin named Ada after my niece.  It is 16 days old now and about about beach ball sized.  I like the look of that stem and the shape of the pumpkin.

The 282 plant will be pollinated tomorrow morning.  A month behind schedule so I'm praying this pollination takes.  Never would have thought we would be this far into the season without a pumpkin on the vine on this plant.  I've got a gut feeling this one could make up for lost time, but we are too far into the season now to see a state record off of this plant.  I plan to pollinate it with my son's1689 Daletas which has a nice pumpkin growing on it.

This evening I gave the plants a foliar application of fish & seaweed with some RAW Humic Acid and Yucca.

Feeding the Pumpkin

This evening I gave the pumpkin plants some RAW Omina, potassium, B-vitamins, Full Up and Humic Acid.  I'm using fertigation now for these kinds of fertilizers so I can give a small trickle of fertilizers to the plants through the irragation.   That allows me to fertilize more evenly and saves me some time.

After all the rain the 1985 pumpkin has really shined up and started to grow.  With warmer weather ahead, I'm hoping it will really put on some weight this next week.

Also sprayed some insecticide on the plants.

282 Scherber Pumpkin Pollination

Got this one in, just under the wire.  The latest pollination I've ever had for a competition pumpkin was July 10th.  That was my rookie year.  That pumpkin ended up at 755 pounds.  Finally got a pollination that will hopefully will be a keeper on the 282 Scherber plant.  Unlike the last one, this one has a good shape and four fully formed lobes.

Pollination Time! Busy in the Pumpkin Patch

1985 Miller Flower

This morning we had two females open in the pumpkin patch.  I gave both of the females about a 30% chance of opening this morning, but they both popped open today.  The way you know if a flower is going to open the next day is you see the flower elongate and the petals start oranging up the day before.  Sometimes however, they don't orange up a lot the evening before so you have to be prepared just in case they do open.  That was the case with both of these flowers.

There was a hint of orange yesterday evening, so I went ahead and covered each flower so bees couldn't get at them and then I cut off some male flowers that I put in water and took into the house.  This morning at 6:30 (I'm dedicated even on a holiday) I went out into the patch and both flowers were opening.  I took the petals off the male flowers and then rubbed 3 flowers stamen on the inside of the flower.  If you look closely at the 1985 Miller flower below you'll see it covered with pollen.  After pollination I recovered each flower. 

1985 Miller

I have a yard chair that I put over each female flower about a week before pollination.  That is to help keep it cool.  I'll keep that chair in place until the pumpkin won't fit under it anymore.  I'll also cover the pumpkins, once they have laid down on the ground with a piece of polyester, white cloth.  That will help keep the pumpkin from getting sun burn and also keep a curious bird from pecking at the pumpkin which I've had twice before.

The 1985 Miller pumpkin's name is going to be Ada.  The 282's pumpkin will be named Berkley.  Each named after two of my nieces.  The 1985 Miller was crossed with the 282 Scherber and the 282 Scherber was crossed with the 1985 Miller.  Called a reverse cross.

The 1689 Daletas is a seed that my son is growing.  We crossed the 1689 with the 1985 Miller, which is my best looking plant so far. 

282 Scherber

1689 Daletas

New Photo of the 282 Scherber Pumpkin Plant

Below is the picture of my 282 plant.  Under that chair in the distance is the female I'll be pollinating either tomorrow or the next day.  This pumpkin is 20 feet out on the main vine.  Easily the farthest pollination from the stump I will have ever had.  By the end of this week almost all of the side vines on the left hand side of the plant will be terminated.  Still a fair amount of growing room on the right hand side of the plant however.  It has been a very good plant so far and it seems happy.  Hoping this pollination takes because it is only the 2nd female to show up on the main vine so far and I can't afford to wait any longer.  Temps are hot today in Denver but should be cooling a little for the next few days.

Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Pumpkin Growing

Einstein would have been a giant pumpkin growing genius, because he understood one of the basic premises of pumpkin growing.  That is that everything is relative to the growers position in the universe and how well their pumpkin plant is growing.  Sometimes as growers we are too close to the plant.  We are over watering, over fertilizing or under watering or under fertilizing because we get too focused on the one thing or the wrong thing and as a result we are missing what would be obvious to everyone else.

I often find that "slow" plant growth or pumpkin growth is sometimes relative to what I want rather than the reality of what is happening.  I can't count the times that it seemed like early in the season that the vines are growing slow until I looked at a picture of my plant on this pumpkin blog (I'm this blog's #1 reader) from 5 days before and only then realized how much the plant had grown.  It is all relative.

This perspective in pumpkin growing often makes us a "moreon" (pronounced moron).  I can't count how many times, after seeing another grower's big pumpkin the grower goes home and pours on a bunch of fertilizer on their plant.  Often times "more on" doesn't work.  A perfectly happy plants lives in a space between just the right amount of water, nutrients, sunlight and warmth where everything is working in balance and harmony so a plant wants to grow.  As Goldie Locks will tell you, too much or too little doesn't work.  It all has to be just right.

So this is my pumpkin growing tip of the day.  Don't be a moreon.  Start by researching everything you can about how to create a great, balanced soil.  Then get a soil test, do plant tissue testing, do soil EC testing or whatever you can afford to find out what your patch has and what your plant needs.  After that, develop a pumpkin fertilizing program and put it on paper.  List what you will give to your pumpkin plants each week in spoon size amounts.  Doing this will allow you to give the right amounts of the right types of fertilizers so you don't become a moreon.  Doing this will allow you to focus on your plant and not get distracted by what others are doing or anxiety.

Next, make proper adjustments to your fertilizer program based on what the plant is telling you and the weather.  A good fertilizer program should be a guide, but not a hard rule.  Use your experience and what the plant is saying to guide you in what you do.  If you are inexperienced, than follow my fertilizing program and talk to other growers and ask them for their tips and advice.
 
Lastly, even if you are experienced grower, ask for other growers opinions.  Like I said before, sometimes you get too close to the plants and you are missing the obvious.  Or someone might have some good tips for things you never thought of.  Just this week I asked advice of a grower for things that I was pretty sure I had the right answer for but I wanted to be sure.  Getting a second opinion sometimes sparks new ideas and keeps you out of trouble.  All of this will allow you to be an Einstein in the pumpkin patch and grow your biggest pumpkin yet.

Pumpkin Pollination & Genetics

I received a request to write about how to choose what plants to cross and how to develop genetics in your seeds that could potentially grow a world record pumpkin the following season.  I should start by clearing a commonly misunderstood part of pollination.  That is that the pollination you do in the next few weeks will have no effect genetically this season on your pumpkin.  Some think that by pollinating with a particular plant this season might effect how the pumpkin grows this season.  That isn't the case.  The pumpkin isn't the child in the pollination.  It is the seeds in the pumpkin that are the children, so the pollination you do this year will only effect next year's pumpkins.

First, lets talk about how to properly pollinate your female flower so you can keep the genetics pure.  Nature has wonderful pollinators that can do a great job of pollination for you.  Bees and other insects will find open flowers in an instant and most of the time a female flower will get pollinated with little help from us.  However, bees will pollinate with the pollen they have come in contact with and in some cases it won't be the pollen you want.

An Atlantic Giant pumpkin is a Cucurbita Maxima variety but so is a banana squash, so letting the bees do the pollination means that your pumpkin plant the following season, from the seeds this season, might give you a surprise if you don't control the pollination.

What I do to control the pollinations is to cover my female flowers with a little mesh bag the evening  before they open.  You can tell when they are going to open because the flower peddles become more orange and the flower tends to elongate some the day before.  The evening before I find some male flowers (ideally 3-4 but one will work) that I cut off and put in water.  The next morning, around 7:00am I'll take those male flowers and hand pollinate the female flower.  I then cover that female flower with the same mesh bag to make sure bees don't get into the flower over the next hour.  Doing it this way I ensure that both the male flowers and female flowers only have the pollen in them that I want them to have.

Choosing which plants to cross can best be summed up in a Forest Gumps quote, "Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you are going to get inside."  Genetics are a funny thing.  Just like in real life, you sometimes have those those short round parents who produce a gorgeous, tall and skinny daughter.  There are world record pumpkins who have produced very small progeny (I think of the 1385 Daletas as an example).   Sometimes the best planned crosses just don't work out.

What I look at when making crosses is the pedigree of both plants.  If you go to tools.pumpkinfantic.com you can search most any seed and look up who mama and papa was for generations.  Typically when doing crosses you either want to bring in a pollinator that is very similar or very different.  So finding a pollinator with the same mama and papa or something that has very little heritage that is the same seems to work out best.

Next I like to look at the shape and ribbing of both parent's pumpkins.  Ideally you don't want a pumpkin that is very ribby.  Ribs can cause splits in your pumpkin because when a deep rib intersects a crack on the inside of the pumpkin, you then have a hole and your season is done at that point.

Next, I like to take a look at the vigor and characteristics of my plants.  If I have a plant that isn't an overly aggressive grower than crossing it with something that seems to be more aggressive might be a good idea.  If I have a plant with big leaves I may not want to cross it with a plant that also has overly big leaves because I found that really big leaves tend not to be as good a shape at the end of the season as wind blows them over.

Lastly, I look at similar crosses that other people have made and see how they tend to work out.  You would think that a 1725 Harp and a 1161 Rodonis, which have both produced world record pumpkins, would be a great cross but in the research I did on other crosses found no great progeny.  This doesn't mean that it couldn't work, but those genetics didn't seem to mesh as well as you would have thought.

Most of the recent world record pumpkins have come from the 2009 Wallace seed.  You look at it's pedigree and you see a cross of two plants that have very little parentage in common.  Obviously that worked.  You then look at the 1725 Harp seed that produced the 2009 pumpkin and it was a selfed pumpkin.  That means the male flowers that pollinated it came from the same plant.   That cross obviously worked as well.

More growers should probably self pollinate their plants.  That practice was kind of frowned upon just 5 years ago until the 1725 Harp started busting out really big and one ton pumpkins.  Selfing can homogenize pumpkin traits and enhance them.  So if you have an exceptional pumpkin plant that produces a really big pumpkin than the seeds from that selfed pumpkin could have some seeds that aren't as good as the parent genetically but it could have seeds that have some of the same traits that have been enhanced.  If enough seeds are grown from that selfed pumpkin that are then selfed the same should happen in the next generation were you can get some super seeds that take the genetics to the next level up.  Problem with pumpkin growing is that you need a lot of growers to grow your seeds in order for that to happen properly, but that is how the seed companies do it to lock in traits and get desirable genetic lines.

This season my plan is to pollinate my 1985 Miller plant with my 282 Scherber plant.  This is one of those crosses where I am bringing in similar genetic lines into that cross.  Haven't decided what I'm going to cross the 282 yet, but I'll be deciding that at the end of this week.

A word of warning.  Many times the best laid pollination plans don't work out.  Lots of times I've planned on pollinating with a particular plant and there were just no male flowers on it that were ready on the day of pollination.   Sometimes you pollinate, get a perfect pumpkin and then there are no seeds or the seeds aren't viable in the pumpkin.  When my big 1421 pumpkin went down I did a couple of late pollination on that plant using pollen from the clone of the 1725 Harp plant that produced the world record 2009 pumpkin.  I would have grown that seed in a second.  It was an ideal cross.  After a semi-early frost I opened up the pumpkins and there was lots of seeds but the seeds weren't mature so none of the seeds would grow.

Happy pollinating to everyone!  Things get exciting in the pumpkin patch this time of year.  Hopefully, in about 30 days from now we will all be talking about how our pumpkins are putting on 35-40 pounds a day.

If you have something you would like for me to write about feel free to post a comment and I would be happy to write about the subject or reply to you comment in the comment fields below.

Females on the Main Vine on Both Pumpkin Plants & Vine Maintainance Strategies

I've got females flowers on both plants now on the main vine.  It looks like I'll be pollinating on both plants between the 27th and 30th.  About a week later than I would prefer to pollinate but, these will be the biggest plants with pumpkins farthest out on the main vine that I will have ever pollinated. That isn't necessarily a bad thing because if there is more plant to power the pumpkin then in theory a pumpkin pollinated later should make up for lost time. 

There was a fascinating thread on bigpumpkins.com in regards to cell division, when to terminate the pumpkin plant, how big a plant should be to increase pumpkin size by making it the main sink early after pollination.  The ideas shared by a number of growers very interesting.  I personally don't believe that a pumpkin should be terminated (i.e. all of the vine tips taken off) at the time of termination to the extent of what was shared in the articles.  I think there are some other factors that should be looked at that are specific to pumpkin plants, but I think the basic premiss is correct.

The thread is kind of technical, but the idea, based on a study done with tomato plants, is that basically cell division in tomatoes only goes on for about 10 days.  After that the growth of the tomatoes is basically cell elongation.  The study cited is pretty solid and says that you can increase the size of your tomatoes by about 80% by terminating growth at the time of pollination so that the tomato fruit becomes the main sink (or place that the energy in the plant flows to) on the plant.

I think pumpkin plants are a bit different than tomato plants however.  For one the growth cycle is much longer than a tomato.  You are talking about 90 to 100 days of growth.  I think that vines after the fruit also feed the fruit, so although cell division may have stopped, it might be that elongation may be increased with more plant.  Also, there is hormonal signaling that is coming from the vine tips that is telling the plant that it is still growing which may allow the fruit to grow longer.

I think also that the idea that kelp should be refrained from being used early in the season is probably also not correct.  There are numerous good studies that show the increased in root mass from soil applied help.  It probably is a good idea to not apply kelp around pollination time however since the Cytokine's in kelp may be inhibitory of auxins which will promote fruit growth.  Although as Russ said in the thread, we may not be using enough kelp that it would have much of an effect in that way.

My 1985 plant will probably be 60% terminated before the fruit at the time of pollination.  I have some vines that I'll be terminating in the next couple of days and in the next week, with the current rate of growth, the majority of the vines will be terminated or near termination at pollination time.

New Pics from the Giant Pumpkin Patch

The following are the latest pictures of both of my plants.  The 1985 Miller is about 13 feet long right now and has a female at about 10 1/2 feet.  The 282 is about 11 feet long with a female at about 10 feet.  It is a week younger, so it is growing fairly well.  I would like to see these plants be about 1 week older until I have keeper pollination on the vine, but I'll pollinate everything on the vine to play it safe.

Better weather is in the forecast for the next week, which is ideal.  If we had the same weather during the next two weeks it could be trouble, but fortunately warmer and less rain in the forecast for now.

1985 Miller

282 Scherber

1985 Miller Plant has Left the Building

Today I removed the hoop house from the 1985 Miller plant.  It was going out the door so it was time.  I'm very pleased with this plant so far.  Good color, descent grower and it looks healthy.  Comparing this plant to my 1421 Stelts plant from two years ago, it is definitely longer on the main but doesn't have the width on the side vines that the 1421 on the same date.  Considering the terrible month we had in May, I'm pleasantly surprised with where this plant is at right now.

Gave the plant a drench of compost tea with Rootshield and RAW Kelp (learn more) and RAW Humic Acid (learn more) added to it.  This will be the last kelp I'll give the plants for a few weeks.  I've read studies that liquid seaweed is good for fruit set, but there is some suggestions now that although it may help with fruit set it may slow down the fruit becoming the main sink of energy in the plant initially becomes some of the hormones in the kelp might inhibit that.  A sink is pretty much anywhere there is growth in the plant. Roots, vines and pumpkins are all sinks.  You want the main sink of the plant to be the pumpkin, so it gets the most energy. 

That 1421 Stelts plant two years ago was an incredible sink. Almost a black hole.  The pumpkin grew like crazy and the vines almost completely stopped once the pumpkin kicked in.  Not sure if you want it to that extreme, but you want the fruit to be established as the main sink as quick as possible.

Kelp on the soil, applied as a drench, is a great way to increase the root mass becomes of the hormones contained within the kelp.  Kelp when applied to the leaves as a foliar application in increase lateral branching.   Those results are amplified when humic acid is added to a drench and fulvic acid is added to a foliar spray of kelp.  That is your pumpkin tip of the day.