re: any theories about quality of light and growth?

     I am in a very hot and dry place.  I have not used shade cloth but I 
did use misters.  Now, my pumpkins did get up to 5 inches per day.  One 
grower told me this was too much growth and I gave her less water.  I got 
less growth the following day.  And less the next, so I upped the water to 
where it had been but my pumpkin never recovered and never grew at that fast 
pace again.  Next year I will definatly not reduce water and just go for it.
     I have also had 13 days of temps above 100 including 3 days of 
106,107,106.  The rest of the days have been in he high 90's with about 2 
days of the high 80's.  These temps are of course while the pumpkin was 
growing.  When I just had plant, temps were in the low 80's.  Things were 
perfect.  Next year I plan to start very much earlier and use greenhouses 
for any possible frost.  I will have a early pumpkin, but hopfully this will 
lead to a large fruit, I can place it in cold storage with my brother in 
laws fruit and have a good one come competition day.
    As to your problem, it may be the heat more than the intensity of the 
sun.  Also, you may not be covering your fruit which leads to early ripening 
and less day growth.  Also, I think you are on to something with the 
intensity of the sun.  I think this damages the leaves so it is harder to 
grow late in the season, but you should definatley be able to get a pumpkin 
growing fast and strong early in the season without problems.  I did, and 
all I used were misters.  But again, my downfall was getting less agressive 
when I should have kept full steam ahead.
     Greg


>From: Matthew Isom <rodents@uswest.net>
>Reply-To: pumpkins@mallorn.com
>To: pumpkins@mallorn.com
>Subject: re: any theories about quality of light and growth?
>Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 12:31:58 -0600
>
>I've just hit that point in the season where I'm desperately grasping
>for a key that will enable my last great hope, a 940 Mombert pollinated
>on July 22, to turn into something more than a 400-500 pound pumpkin.  I
>head out diligently twice a day to measure the thing, and, although it's
>doing better than any pumpkin I'VE ever grown, it still hasn't kicked in
>with the 4 or 5" per day that people like Glenn Needham see around day
>15 or so.  I'm at 42" on day 17 but only putting on 3" per day.  Every
>day I go out hoping to see that my punkie has kicked in and started to
>go crazy, but to no avail.
>MY LATEST theory is that the quality of the light here in Salt Lake City
>is just too harsh for pumpkins.  When I traveled to Indiana and Michigan
>last summer, the thing that I noticed most was the intensity of the
>light, or rather the lack thereof.  The brightness out here in the
>desert is so much more intense.  In the mid-west I feel like it's never
>truly sunny, but that the light is always passing through some sort of a
>filter (trillions of water particles from the humidity, I imagine).  My
>measurements seem to back this up.  I've noticed that on bright, sunny
>days my pumkins don't really grow at all during the day (maybe 1/4") and
>that virtually ALL of the growth comes at night.  Last week, however, we
>had a humid, partially cloudy day, and I noticed that my pumpkin grew
>more during the day.  I'll have to watch for more of this to see if it
>was just a fluke or mismeasurement or something.
>So, what I'm wondering is if I need some sort of shade cloth, perhaps
>even just huge sheet of translucent plastic (allowing for ventilation of
>course) or something.  At the first of the season I was planning on
>using shade cloth or lattice, but got strapped for time and money when
>we had our baby.  I'm thinking that shade could make the difference, or
>possibly very fine misters that simulate the humid hazy conditions of
>the mid-west.
>So, all this theorizing doesn't do any good unless it's backed up with
>some data.
>IS THERE ANYONE growing in a hot, dry, clear place who has noticed a
>marked improvement from using some type of shade this year?
>What do you think, is the quality of the light or the humidity a key
>factor?
>
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