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Little-TON - Colorado

Thoughts on this......I am presenting this question for Barry Todd, longtime Colorado grower who has no PC......

We talked about size of plants and Barry and I both leave on some extra leaves and or tertiarys if already developed to compensate for damaged or flagged leafs, dependant upon what has grown or not grown.
Ive seen some chatter on BP about amount of leaves per vine....and the size of those leaves. Perhaps now would be a good time to throw out or gather some data on the perfect plant thats on target to hit 1000. Something here in Colorado is a rarity, and perhaps we need to have 15' vines instead of 12 and maybe we leave on some tertiarys and terminate those after a few feet to bulk up quicker, especially if your State challenges you with early cool weather. I'm thinking I would rather have a plant with smaller leaves and lots of those leaves on the vine vice a plant with elephant ear leaves but far less......what is the consensus of those who have been successful and consistent with growing 1/2 ton'ers? Now would be a good time to count leaves, measure across and post those results for consumption and comments.......
For instance, 12 ' vine, 17 leaves average per vine, leaves 12" across. I was just wondering as some plants like the 805 Pukos, 1175 Bowles and even the 1502 Wallace are showing smaller leaves but lots of them......just wondering..........your thoughts?

7/12/2007 2:37:18 PM

Minnesota

You know what they say about big feet, Big Shoes!! hahhhahaha... So, Big Leaves = Biz's pumpkins and little leaves = Longbeard's pumpkins? Other than that I have nothing intelligent to add to your inquiry. I do like the tertiary replacement idea especially the way some of my plants look after wind and misplaced fertilizer...And sun and Beetles etc..

7/12/2007 4:53:50 PM

southwest MO

I'm noticeing all my plants look the same after everything is terminated and mature regardless of how they started. If you can keep them alive they all seem to get giant.

7/12/2007 5:15:34 PM

Rhode Island

wiz

there used to be a time when people counted leaves and such.
now, its square ft of plant.
it really does not matter if your leaves are big or small. even though big leaves present there own set of problems as they tend to break and bend in the wind

7/12/2007 5:25:21 PM

southwest MO

Pap how about how far apart the secondarys grow? If you begin by angleing them behind the stump you wind up with the same sq. ft of plant but takes up a greater sq. ft. of patch space... It gets hard to estimate plant size in sq. ft. when the walk ways between secondarys become wider.

7/12/2007 5:43:10 PM

Denver, CO

The Wiz,
This is the same thing I was talking to you about last night up at your patch. I understand, per Pap above, the sq/ft of plant (behind pumpkin and/or with the ahead) is a factor used now. But what about when there is 4 leaves per sq/ft of plant versus 1 leaf per sq/ft of plant. I remember from some very introductory engineering classes that with solar cells, the more cells you can cram into a given area, the better the output vrs just one single giant cell in the same given area. Is there a parallell to Ag plants??? Too heady for my small cranium, but defiently worth investigating I think.

7/12/2007 7:51:14 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Gary (oops I mean Wiz), a well known grower told me that at one time, many years ago, it was thought that each leaf on the plant could add as much as 2 lbs to a pumpkins weight. Now with that in mind, you would need a plant with 500 leaves or more to reach 1000 lbs.

So, that would mean if you had a minimum of 7 secondaries on each side before the fruit you would average 17 leaves per vine times 14 vines = 238 leaves plus a few secondaries and the main after the fruit would add up to perhaps 300 to 350 leaves.

I guess my point is that the math just does not add up however growers used to have huge plants that covered square feet when this calculation was used.

Be interesting to know how many leaves Ron and pap had on their world record plant and how many pounds per leaf that adds up to.

pap, could you educate us on that?

7/12/2007 9:35:39 PM

Little-TON - Colorado

My querie exactly, On the 1175 Bowles last night I counted 22 leaves on 12' vine, smaller leaves and a compact plant. On the 805 Pukos that Greg and I started the same conversation with, is very similar, with 15 sets of sides with a 12 main and should be having common genetics with the 1175, funny 1502 also (Lloyd/Mettler?).
I do notice that the hotter our temps got, the more distance between the leave junctures, coinciding with more plant, more roots,more heat, more water, leading to faster growing as the plant ramps up. Another neat thing is Im pretty convinced if you want larger leaves or taller stems then shade your plant, I believe these Photon receptors(Leaves) are designed to utilize a given amount of sunshine, if throttled (shaded or acute angle to the sun changed) the leaf size will adjust growing larger to try and obtain its goal, thus using more energy to get same energy........perhaps not what we want....(verifyies the 1000 sq ft theroy) too.
Oh and what about Ultra Violet Frequencies at higher altitude....my head is starting to hurt......

Wow, my wizard hat is starting to smoke......But this is good stuff and I value your all comments too, now is the time for these observations as we can go out and look at our plants to compare, take notes, and share...then post the results....lets grow one 1600lbs......in Colorado.....LMAO, yeah right.

Grow'em BIG
Wiz

7/13/2007 9:34:05 AM