Re: Open to discussion
Rocky R. writes:
>Splits , after this season, to me - see genetic.. I have 4 plants,
>fertilized them all exactly
>the same, and only had one plant give me a stem split, my Checkon 815. I
>have two nice fruit on
>it, but both fruit have stem splits.. Gofigure.. I have 6 other fruit
>between the 3 other plants,
>and non of themhave any stem splits, but then agian, they are not nearly as
>big..
I agree it's genetic. This year, I have 2 different plants planted within 2 feet
of each other. Obviously getting the same fert, soil, sun. One clearly has
terribly brittle leaf stems and vines. Just normal growing caused fractures in the
main (was not broken by wind nor too much fertilizer). Brushing past a leaf is
enough to snap it off. My other plant, plus one more at the other end of the
garden are not like this at all.
Last year, I grew the 608 Hester seed. I was quite happy with it, however
the stem split on 8/24, going deep into the flesh for two days- I
put a metal hose clamp with rubber padding (inner tube) under it, and captan.
This saved my pumpkin. I had to loosen it every couple weeks.
Then I remembered that the 608 itself went down due to stem (and blossom) split.
Looking thru the archives, I noted that my split occurred within *5* days in
fruit age compared the the 608 itself! As my fruit was 145 lbs at the time,
you can see I wasn't pushing anything too much. (It finished the season at 245.)
So the split had absolutely nothing to do with size, just with age
or time of year. My 145 pounder split its stem just as readily as Brett's 600 pounder.
He got to 600 pounds by growing it faster before the magic genetic-programmed
split age. Only by putting a hose clamp on it did I control it for an additional
hundred pounds of growth.
At the end of the season, Brett indicated that other growers of this seed
had stem splits too. This was pretty cool to find out.
My conclusion was that it seems like the genetics of this particular seed are
prone to the splitting,
-----------
Rick Inzero
near Rochester, NY
rdi@cci.com
Proud grower of the 801st place pumpkin of the entire 1999 Weighoff season!!
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