Jeff's Great Pumpkin Challenge

Yesterday (Sept 16) I taped the two bigger pumpkins.  To my amazement, they are still putting on weight!  I've never had Atlantic Giants growing in mid September and especially after and record setting cold that occurred a couple of weeks ago.  This year I was able to keep ahead of the insects and disease by applying more Sevin, a little Tempo, and AGRONIS products as a foliar spray to the plants.  They are now starting to show a lot of wear though, primarily to the cold that occurred, I think.  Regardless.... The 1257 taped out at 477 pounds and was a DAP69 (days after pollination) and the 1713 taped out at 518 pounds and was DAP63.   The 1257 The 1713 I need to find a place that I can get these weighed in a few weeks.  I'll have to check the local CO-OP and see if their scales can measure to the nearest pound.   There is a "new and improved" estimating chart that if I used it the pumpkins would be 518 and 563 pounds.  My state fair pumpkin in 2017 was 542.5 so I wou

 Well I already have ideas for next season to better my chances of getting that half ton pumpkin.  But for this challenging season, at least the pumpkins are still growing.  This morning the 1257 taped out at around 439 pounds (DAP55) and is putting on about 7 pounds per day (weekly average).  Part of the reason that it is still gaining weight is that plant is still healthy.  In fact, I've never had Atlantic Giant pumpkin plants look this good in early September.  The image below shows the 1257 on the left and the 1713 on the right. I guess even though the 1713 is not as heavy (estimated from the over-the-top measuring method) as the 1257, it is also 6 days younger and is on a plant that was planted on a whim late in the season (May 31) and in a new area that had never had anything done to the soil.  Here was that pumpkin this morning sitting at about 416 pounds at DAP 49. If there isn't an early freeze, then I still might get one of them to top out at around 600 pounds.