The Good, The Bad, and The UGLY

The Good...we're still getting periodic rains and the Giants have made "some" progress.  

The Bad...the plants are starting to show disease and some insect damage which will limit weight gain.  

The UGLY...a thunderstorm two days ago on the 10th had hail ranging from dime to a few golf ball sized.  There was a fair amount of quarter sized hail.  As luck would have it, the pumpkin on the 1713 Lancaster plant sustained 2 impacts that broke the skin.  Plus, the plants themselves took hits damaging leaves and vines.

It's a bummer since the 1713 Lancaster pumpkin had started to pick up on the daily weight gain.  Last week that pumpkin taped out at around 144 pounds.  This morning at DAP 28 it taped out at 240 pounds and was ahead of the pace of the state fair pumpkin from 2017. The two impacts from the hail were deep enough that the "wounds" started to ooze.  So I rednecked it and glued pieces of elastic/rubber banding over the damaged spots.  I have absolutely no idea if this will help, or even hurt.  Here is a picture of that pumpkin this morning.....



Despite having much of the pumpkins covered (to prevent sun scalding and keep them cooler), the north side of the pumpkins is exposed and unfortunately the hail fell with a stiff north wind.  Here is a picture of the 1257 (left) and the 1713.



The pumpkin on the 1257 plant has definitely slowed in growth and is showing signs of maturing with a deeper orange color developing.  I'm disappointed as the pace of growth early on had been really pretty good.  This morning that pumpkin taped out at an estimated 289 pounds.  A week ago it was ~215 pounds. At DAP34 it should be gaining an average of ~20 pounds a day.

The 250 plant continued with crazy growth but the pumpkin I pollinated around 3 weeks ago is really sluggish on growth.  This morning at DAP22 it was only around 53 pounds.  Because of this slow growth, I did pollinate another pumpkin a couple of days ago.  If that one takes off, I'll cull this little slow growing piece of junk. 

If the plants can hold off just long enough (because of the developing disease), I still might get a 600 pounder out of the 1713.  The 1257 doesn't look like it will make much more than 450.  

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