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Date Posted

Colorado

This is what happens when I have insomnia and stare at the gpc numbers too long. God help us all......(You should see what I do with the auction data....sigh) anyway this is a fun way to look at things.

If your tomato was a pumpkin this is what it would weigh.
(taken from the 2021 data)

tomato to pumpkin equivalents

4 lbs tomato is 1040 lbs pumpkin
5 lbs tomato is 1340 lbs pumpkin
6 lbs tomato is 1830 lbs pumpkin
7 lbs tomato is 2000 lbs pumpkin
8 lbs tomato is 2170 lbs pumpkin
9 lbs tomato is 2500 lbs pumpkin

9/6/2022 2:53:04 AM

Mead, WA

Hmm 300,490,170,170,330 differences not seeing a pattern for formula what would a 1pound tomato be or a 500pound pumpkin equal

9/6/2022 4:50:28 AM

Grittyville, WA

2600 would be 10 lbs... 2700 would he 11 lbs.. The Patoms pumpkin was definitely a 12 lb tomato :)

There's different analysis methods that might yield slightly different conversions but those numbers are close to what I came up with when I was doing my own assessment of the master gardener scoring system.

9/6/2022 11:03:11 AM

Grittyville, WA

The main hangup for making a fair comparison is that there are fewer tomsto growers than pumpkin growers.

9/6/2022 11:07:22 AM

Colorado

The formula (not perfect but works).

I looked at the ranking place in the 2021 tomato ranks. I divided the total number of entries. I then took that number and divided it into the total number of pumpkin entries. This gives the rank number in the pumpkin chart.

Tada easy. I did shift the numbers a touch to make things cleaner.

9/6/2022 12:32:18 PM

Grittyville, WA

The results form a bell curve. For most you cant tell which bell curve (the graph of all the results) you are looking at, they all look similar. There was only one bell curve that had a slightly different shape and I forget which category it was. Other than some extreme outliers like Steve Connelly's bushel gourd, there's a lot of mathematical similarity to the results across the different categories.

9/6/2022 1:05:56 PM

Grittyville, WA

Its useful, kinda fun, to cross compare using whatever you grew that year, to see if one's gardening skill is improving. Also, what goal you might want to set for yourself when you try a new gpc category.

Idk though Scott, the wife might tolerate one mistress (tomatoes) for a year but you arent actually free... youre just on one of those retractable leashes with a long line, buddy.

9/6/2022 1:32:15 PM

Colorado

It's more of a shock collar really.....

9/6/2022 2:22:25 PM

Grittyville, WA

Lol!!!

9/6/2022 3:36:33 PM

Colorado

Ok I was emailed asking to "better" explain what I did to come up with the numbers. (Honestly is just for fun...but ok) You take the gpc data sets under GPC INFO. "2021 Tomato" now say we want to know 3lb tomato equivalency we go to the last 3.00lbs tomato. It is 189 (3 way tie just trust me) now we divide the total entries (360) by 189. So 1.9 then we take the total pumpkin entries 1550 and divide that by 1.9 so 816 rounded up. Now we look that place up in the pumpkin results. It is a 671 lbs pumpkin. So there ya go. A 3 lb mater is equivalent to a 671lb pumpkin.

9/6/2022 5:21:07 PM

Grittyville, WA

183÷360x1550=814. You must be Alaskan, you lost two places by rounding away the lower 48 states!
1.9048 translates to a 672 lb pumpkin... OoooOoo. No James Webb telescope job for you my friend!

But yeah the method seems legit to me. Its kinda like when teachers use a class rank system (grading on a curve) to grade students. If there were 30 kids in the English class, and only 20 in the math class, then ranking 15th in English would be the same as ranking 10th in math. Hence you'd get a "C" in both classes.

I'd sure like to get an "A" someday :)

9/7/2022 10:19:15 PM

Colorado

My wife is Alaskan... :) Ya nasa would not approve of my rounding and dropping a couple tiny tomatoes and pumpkins to get a nicer number. Imagine having several straight A students in a class grading on a curve. ohhhh there would be tears and pissed parents. Trips to protest the school board.....ya....

you get an A. Everybody gets an A. and a Ribbon and a metal. The score is always tied and everybody wins. (and loses) :)

9/9/2022 1:54:45 AM