This seasons cloning [propagating pumpkins] research

First off, I apologize to all growers I have not been in contact with this summer. It's been hell here...literally too... with the drought and heat Colorado has had. I've extended the patch from 1,000 SQ feet to 1,600 during the year, among other projects, so time has been scarce.
This is the 4th season of the cloning experiment. Officially I am propagating pumpkins, not cloning plants from DNA, for the record! Everyone thinks I do not know the difference or something... anyway, I use the term "clone" because the propagated pumpkin plant are identical to the plants from which they are cut from, so if the shoe fits...
Last seasons plant that grew my 592 pumpkin, the 746 Scherber clone, did not make it through the winter to grow a third season, nor did any of my other clones. I had them in a mini greenhouse, and in spring the timer which controlled my heater went bad, and did not turn off the heater on a warm spring day, thus frying all plants in the mini greenhouse. I did have a 563 Geerts clone growing in the house bay window though. That is the only clone I had to experiment with this summer, but much was learned from that plant. I also lost a season of researching clones used for pollinating purposes. I personally like the clones just for male breeding, not for regeneration to produce fruit again.
Growers wondered if a clone could ever establish a stump or main root like a regular plant. Many thought that a clone plant could not produce a fruit equal to fruit from the original plant, since a clone plant does not have a "real" stump, which is what I thought as well. My goal this season was to find a method which could produce a main root from an actual starting point... a stump. Although I didn't try to grow a large fruit on this clone, I did find a method to produce a stump as large as any regular plant started from seed. I gave the plant 100 square feet to grow in, and it has a fruit at 86 circumference at day 31, nothing impressive, but that is good size fruit for a plant with 80 or so leaves. I attribute this decent growth to the clone having a stump area. Getting a clone to do this is simple. I planted the clone from the pot straight into the garden, and allowed it to begin vine growth. Once it produced its first large leaf, I dug down 6 inched and buried just that leaf node. I allowed the plant to vine out about 3-4 feet from that point before burying any other leaf nodes [about 4 to 6 leaves]. Once the plant reached 10 feet, I cut off the original vine right before the rooted new stump area and pulled out the original indoor potted plant. It had decent roots which grew, but I could tell this part of the plant only had roots which grew the first few feet of the vine, nothing which could support the rest of the new plant. I noticed the first leaf that was buried had a sizable vine area when I cut it off, fat enough and rooted enough at a starting point to be easily mistaken as a regular stump. The plant did not even wilt a little on a 90 degree day once  the potted part of the plant was dug up and then removed. This was possible to do since there were enough roots to support the plant at that time. The plant was treated like a normal plant there after. I did allow side vines [main secondaries] to grow initially, but also didn't bury them until they grew out 3-4 feet from the "stump" area. By doing this, a starting point was initialized for main root development, forcing the clone to produce roots from the only buried area of which it could grow roots.
This discovery almost has me convinced to grow a clone plant in my main patch next year. Almost... there sure are a lot of good seeds screaming for me to plant instead...LOL. I do have a few really good candidates though which I wouldn't mind growing another season. Thank god the winter allows us plenty of time to plan!
 
"Madman" Marc Sawtelle
Colorado Springs
Colorado
Marc 
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