Re:Covering vines
I've never lost a vine to rot because of burying but I guess it
does happen. I have saved a lot of vines from being rolled and
damaged by the wind by covering them to help anchor them to the
ground.
I don't think we are just talking about encouraging feeder
roots when the vines are buried. I've seen four major tap
roots form (two on top, two from the bottom) on a single leaf
junction on a properly buried vine. These are important from
the standpoint of anchoring the plant as well as feeding the
plant. Those with vine borer problems, have another good
argument for covering the vines.
Bottom line - buried vines equal bigger pumpkin!
vince
--- Mike Nepereny <neps@alltel.net> wrote:
> I really really starting to think that covering the vines in
> dirt may do
> more harm than good. The original idea I believe was to
> encourage rooting of
> the feeder roots that appear at each leaf junction. With this
> mind, what
> good does covering the entire vine do? Is even burying the
> leaf junctions
> really advantagous? Is it truly generating more feeder root
> activity? Its
> not hard to see how submerging all the vines in dirt might
> introduce some
> problems. I have 9 plants going this year so I may be
> rationalizing a bit.
> All that vine burying sucks!
>
> Any thoughts on this?
>
> Mike
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