So far, so good!

In my quest for the 1000 pound pumpkin, it would appear that I've made great strides this season based on the health and size of the plants and the fact that I had a pollinated pumpkin much earlier than previous seasons.   July 8th is the earliest date I've ever had a baby pumpkin that was left to grow.  This season I pollinated one on June 17th on the 1990 Marintzer plant.  However, that particular pumpkin had been growing at a much slower rate that even the 595 pounder I grew last year.  BTW, that one had a really good chance of reaching 1000 pounds had it not been for a split stem, that I was not aware of until the end of the season.  Anyway, this current growing pumpkin has really started to put on weight this past few days.  As of this afternoon (4th) it was taped at an approximate weight of 72 pounds.


What is encouraging to me is that it's on a main vine and the plant itself is extremely vigorous and healthy.  Barring any setbacks, I think it could be putting on 20 pounds a day before too long.  That's $$ sitting right there.  Compare the size this afternoon to what it looked like on the 24th (when it was only 7 days after pollination and growing a little slowly) - and discussed in the previous blog posting (read it by clicking here),,,


In this new plot the two plants are the 1990 Marintzer (as a reminder that 1,990 pound pumpkin is the Kansas state record), and the 595 Hutton (the 595 pounder that I grew last season).  Here's what the two plants looked like this afternoon (the 595 in the foreground)....

 

It's amazing that I almost lost the 595 to wilting early on but it has since recovered fully.  I did get a pumpkin pollinated on this plant on the 30th and it's already starting to grow pretty rapidly.  Hopefully it does not abort on it's own because the backup pumpkin that was pollinated was inadvertently removed this afternoon (by me - ugh).  Anyway, here was that pumpkin this afternoon...


The two other plants in the original giant pumpkin growing plot are very vigorous but I've had problems (not bad luck) getting pumpkins pollinated and growing too.  I've had to abort several as they just didn't get going.   Here what the two plants looked like this afternoon with the 450 Clements in the foreground along with the 1989.5 Deletas.


A female (baby pumpkin) was on the main vine on the 450 plant and was ready to accept pollination on the 30th, but there was NO pollen to be found on any of the plants as it was a little late in the morning and the 1000's of bees had already "robbed" the male plants of pollen.  I presented pollen the following morning but 24 hours later is too late I think so I don't believe that pumpkin "took".  I'll give it a few more days.  I have subsequently pollinated 2 others on secondary vines on the 1st and 3rd.

I'm just not having ANY luck with getting pumpkins pollinated on the 1989.5 plant.  The one that is growing was pollinated by bees (not preferred as I don't know who the parent plant is) on the 28th is not situated in a great spot and is not growing too fast.  I hope to pollinate a couple more during the next few days. 


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