Re: Old question �?�new twist

Kevin,

thanks for the nudge.  I need to post a follow up to my original one but always have other things to do.  Actually I am waiting to try another round of germination test but why wait.  In my case the pumpkin was culled at 20 days and left in the patch until it was 43 days.  I did nothing to the fruit for the duration. I harvested the seeds as I usually do, washed them and out them out to dry.  First observation was that the seeds seem to have a greenish tint to them but otherwise look normal.  I think this is immaturity but maybe I was looking for something.  While washing off all the extra pumpkin stuff they separated into 2 groups.  floaters and sinkers.  I have kept them divided that way for now to see if there is any difference in germination rate etc. 59 were sinkers and 283 floaters.  30 of the floaters are clearly not mature because they are very white and thin.  I should mention that all the seeds feel a little light.  I opened a typical floater and it looks complete but thin as if it needed to bulk up.  The white thin ones were empty when opened.  The sinkers were the same as the floaters, complete but thin.  Why wait for them to dry , why not try a germination now? so I did.  I use a zip lock bag method to do my germinations so I did the same for these.  I have a very high germination with normal seeds. actually I think I've only had 1 failure over the years.  I tried 3 of the more normal looking floaters.  For the first time ever for me the seeds were moldy after the first day but I left them to continue.  Two of the 3 never germinated and the third one started a small root.  I need to try the germination again without mold,lol  I suspect I will find similar results to yours.  If and when they germinate they will be weak and probably fail to produce strong plants.  I'm waiting for the seeds to finish drying before I try another germination.  I'll post another followup at that time.  For now I think we both have found they are simply to young.

thanks for your input.
Bart

-----Original Message-----
From: Pumpkinpirate1@aol.com
Sent: Aug 21, 2005 1:33 AM
To: pumpkins@hort.net
Subject: Re: Old question �?�new twist

Bart 
As to your question of how old a pumpkin must be to have viable seeds. i  
tried a trick back in 2003 i culled a 845 Bobier that was crossed with my 703*  
Smith it was about 23 days old and around 50 lbs. i soaked it in liquid Kelp 
one  day and three days later in calcium chelate. it made it easily till 
September  but went down before October. the seeds were very nice and viable. they  
germinated well that winter but the little plants did't really do well. very  
weak plants and never made it long enough to grow out as a full plant. I tried  
that same seed this year and went through 20 of them with no luck. 
   I have had pumpkins and squash up to 558 lbs that had no  viable seeds 
like my wifes 528* from last year. it was just full of Psudo seeds  and was well 
over 50 days old probably more like 60 something...
  Hope this helped...
 
 Kevin Smith
Squashbuckler

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