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Western NY

I had a TON of them this year with my fruit, relatively speaking. worst offenders were 801 stelts / 846 Calai lines. couple fruit had around half of the seeds empty. i don't think it was the soil, because those numbers haven't changed much at all. weather? anyone else out there have this problem?

11/15/2004 11:38:26 AM

Leicester, NY

Andy,
Along that 846 line, my 894.4 only had perhaps 5-10 viable seeds in it. The rest were quite empty:-( I didn't have any seed problems with my other fruit, so I'm not sure what's going on.

11/15/2004 12:25:35 PM

[email protected]

We found 21 light seeds out of 681 total in the highest seed count fruit. So this was not a concern here this year. The bearing females were 845 Bobier & 842 Eaton.

The best I can do is rank the possible suspected causes.

I suspect the most likely cause of light seeds is temperature stress during pollination. Too low for good male production or too high for embryonic production in the female.

Wet pollen is another suspect.

It is well known & documented that nutrient issues impact the efficacy of seed production. Phosphorus is the most likely suspect. Knowing the soil temperature in the days following pollination might shed a clue.

Genetics belongs in the ranking, but I'd place it low on the list since plenty of other 801/846 progeny have produced viable seeds.

Like a lot of the quirky things we encounter & observe in AGs, I'll bet it is a combination of factors. My personal opinion leans toward low temperatures prior to seed set (P loss) & high temperatures just following. But opinipons are like *@!9*&%%@ & everybody has one. LOL

11/15/2004 12:34:15 PM

Utah

My 891 (735 Pukos x self) only had a couple of hollow seeds, and lots of solid ones. (Sorry I haven't counted them yet)

11/15/2004 1:11:35 PM

C N Y

i just used as many male flowers as possible without overkill, in which case i pollinated my 794 Wronski with the 950.4 Boyton, using 6 males. well over 500 seeds from that one, but nothing like one i had a few years ago in '02, where i stopped counting at 777...that was ENOUGH!
this was on my 530 est. '02 (350 est. Langevin,(1006 X 815), poll'd by the 706.5 Willemse), unrelated to THIS year, but my PB of seed-countage, probably using only 3 males...eric

11/15/2004 5:53:52 PM

Mt.Pleasant,Iowa

Well I just found out that most or all of my 480 are hollow or just filled out halve way. The pumpkin was fully grown and did not split.I am not sure why also the 977 seemed to be ok.I am doing some germination tests on the 480 and 977 to see what happens.

11/15/2004 6:25:54 PM

Choctaw, OK

my 857 from the 735 Pukos had about 100-150 seeds...not a huge amount. probably around 50-100 hollow seeds...alot of seeds didnt mature, that were small and white yet in the fruit.

case

11/16/2004 12:50:33 AM

Berlin,mi.([email protected])

My 570 had 500 seeds in it. About 300 good ones 150 half developed and 50 hollow.
steve

11/24/2004 6:37:21 AM