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plant communication

Does anybody know how much of the root and leaf system actually feeds a
given pumpkin?  I would expect that there is some distance, say 10-15 ft,
beyond which the pumpkin and the roots/leaves are simply not in
communication. No fluid flow, no transmittal of nutrients, nothing.
If you lopped off everything further away, your pumpkin would grow just as big.

One piece of supporting evidence is that fact that 700 lb pumpkins can come
off of 450 sq ft plants - you don't need more leaf mass under some growing
conditions.   The rule of thumb "don't grow green" gets at the same
intuition.

Any plant biologists out there want to run a test?  Add a radioactive
tracer (or a powerful dye) to your water, apply in a specific spot, wait a
few hours (days?), walk 10 ft and measure.

If we knew the answer to this question we could do a better job pruning our
vines.

	Dan Shapiro
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