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North Ga

My one and only plant is doing very well. It is about 9 ft. in length with 8 secondary vines. How many of these should I prune? Should I prune the vine that is growing opposite the main? This truly is a long shot :^)

Thanks,
Pappy

6/16/2001 7:25:41 AM

derry n.h u.s.a.

Well
Pappy.I have a plant with a main vine and a rear main.The rear main is directly on top of the stump.I keep all main vines,some plants have as many as three mains i think!.Any ways i am takeing off every other secondary on the main vine so i can get in between and work weed,spray,etc.Also i belive that extra spaceing will give the leafs more airflow and also room to grow to the maximum.Of course the more leafs the better if you have a small garden like me you've gotta be tight with the training of the vines to maximize space i have 1000 sq ft two plants my plans are for one to be 300 sq ft the other 600 or so. I heard somewhere that the pounds per leaf weight ratio is max 4 pounds of pumpkin weight per leaf (that could be argued im sure).So if you've got 400 or so leafs on a plant and things go well you could get or should get an 800lb pumpkin or a very large pumpkin to say the least.I grew a 700lb plus pumpkin with around 200 leafs or so.Sometimes less is better that is to say i'd rather have a real healthy plant with 300 leafs then a borer infested afhed ridden plant with 600 leafs.I went the other way last season with as many leafs as i could get.I had mildew due to poor air flow ,borers i couldent get to with out cracking leaf stalks.You get the picture.Well i could go on &on.But gotta go out to the patch.Hope this helped.
Best of luck John G...

6/16/2001 8:12:29 PM

North Ga

Thanks for the input John G, I hate to hack up a perfectly good plant but I know it's for the better. I am going to try to clone a few secondaries. We'll see what happens.

Thanks again and Good Luck!!

6/17/2001 10:13:25 AM