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St. Louis MO

The top of my Pumpkin around the stem is rotting for some reason. It is spreading away from the stem leaving rotten brown flesh pitts. Is my boy finished? Could I cut it off and carve out the rot and hope he survives until Halloween? He has turned orange and started showing ribs. I have tried everything and It will not stop. There has been no new growth since the rot has shown it's ugly face. Please help!

8/12/2000 9:38:24 PM

St. Louis MO

Don't bother with helping here....it has rotted so much at the top the pumpkin has separated from the stem. the stem is also rotten but still attatched to the vine. No sign of a borer....just some nasty rott? It is also showing up on my other punkins. If you know what this might be please help.

8/13/2000 6:52:33 PM

derry n.h u.s.a.

HI STEVE:Take a tooth brush and scrub the soft stuff of the stems get all you can get off.Get it down to hard stem and then mix a slurry of Captions fungicide and paint the whole area i end up painting the whole stem area onto the pumpkin and onto the vine then put a small fan on the problem area just enough to move the air and dry the area up and keep it on 24-7 till it drys up. If you have soft spots on the pumpkin itself. The above mentioned was for the stem area only.I have right now a white pumpkin around 400lbs the front is oozing sap out of little brown spots those arent problem areas thats normal sometimes i,ve had then leake before and lots of brown spots as big as a 1/4 inch around thay leak a rubbery clear or white substence thats normal for some pumpkins i hit those areas with a slurry also. Now if you have a soft spot in your pumpkin that you can see is some sort of rot slice it off only going as deep as you have to till its hard again. if you had an apple with a bruise on it and you sliced it off you might be takeing a surface area of of 1 inch in diameter and going 1/8 of an inch deep.Then take some dry Captions dust and apply to area and keep a fan on it again just enough to move the air.If your stem is seperating from your pumpkin and you can see inside the pumpkin theres not much you can do or that i know of what i did one yr. was i got a split im my pumpkin blossem end it was small at first then got bigger every day i applied thick captions but it wouldent plug the whole so i cleaned the area and put duct tape on it and applied captions paste twice a day morning and night the pumpkin grew another 400 lbs with the hole pasted it will keep them till late in the season or untill halloween but no good for weighoff. If you,ve got a hole in the stem sererated from the pumpkin and you want it to keep tape it and paste it .p.s don,t go sliceing up your pumpkin get a little more advice if you can.

8/13/2000 8:30:14 PM

St. Louis MO

Thanks MiniPatch!

8/13/2000 9:24:00 PM

PA

Zero Tolerence is a product in How to Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins 2. Ive been using it on the pumpkins and all the plant. It seems to do an excellant job with fungus and it helped heal Tubbys stem before his blossom end blew out. I used it to wash the brown areas and then put the Captan slurry on and let it dry. Good luck with the rest. Ive also heard you can use a diluted clorox mix to wash pumpkins with but I'm not sure of the dilution ratio
Amy

8/13/2000 10:00:43 PM