Rochester, NY update, 6/25/99 + broke personal best :-)

Over the weekend, my 771 Fortin 98 had three pumpkins go through
the 10 day mark.  All are perfectly round fruit set on secondaries (I lost
the primary a while ago when it cracked off in a thunderstorm), set 
at about 17 1/2' from the stump.  
The plant is huge, with the secondaries roughly 25+' long.
It's got over 80 21-25" leaves.
It's getting very difficult to walk in the garden as it's only 9' wide...
(everything's trained to go up the 38' length) the secondaries are only 
about a foot apart.   I have not had a single chewed flower since I
put the 1" hole chicken wire around the whole garden.  The rabbits could
get through the 2" hole chain link, but not through the 1" holes.
Everything I have set (on both plants) used pollen from the 771.
I need to decide what to put underneath the fruit, and soon.

Pumpkin F-2  30" circumference at 10 days since pollenation (basketball sized)
   Unfortunately, I have nicked the skin on this one (while swatting a bug), and 
   it's developed into a 3" gash (across the ribs) due to the relentless growth-
   this makes it hard to heal up.  
   I don't have any experience so I don't know if this is a recoverable situation
   or not, so after 3 days I finally plastered captan paste into it in a last ditch attempt 
   to save it.  It was a 5 segment flower.

Pumpkin F-3  31" circumference at 10 days
   This one has a somewhat poor fruit position relative to the vine, 
   and I'm slowing (daily) trying to adjust it.  Luckily, it has a fairly long
   stem, so this may help out in the long run.  It was a 5 segment flower.
  
Pumpkin F-4  27 3/4" circumference at 10 days
   I just nicked the skin on this one, too.  A bamboo stick broke while I was
   pushing it in nearby and it whacked it.  Since I had the captan out, I plastered
   it right away.  The nick wasn't as bad as on the F-2 pkin, but we'll see.
   It was a 4 segment flower.

I also have 4 other fruit on the 771 plant so far, most about softball size.

The couple days of 90 degree weather killed a few developing immature females,
plus caused a new pollenation to fail.
I've been cutting off many 3' tertiary vines.
I found one squash vine borer in a leaf stem.


My 608 Hester 98 plant has just two pumpkins set, both on the main vine, one 
softball size at about 6 days, the other baseball size.
This plant seems to be about 2 weeks behind the Fortin development-wise, 
although they germinated the same day.  It has tons of male flowers, but not
many females.  It's got perhaps a dozen 20" leaves.  It has a few secondaries,
but not as many or as long as the Fortin.
I found evidence of two vine borers in secondaries, and carved away, but never 
found the larvae (probably inexperience here; I later found the one in the 
771 leaf, so now I know what to do).

The best news is that I've BROKEN MY PERSONAL BEST already!!  Whoo-oo!
(My personal best was a fully mature AG of 21" circumference- a whopping
four and a half pounds, from last year!)   :-)  

-----------
Rick Inzero, *FORMER* grower of dwarf Atlantic Giants
near Rochester, NY
rdi@cci.com

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