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Eugene,OR

I’d be interested in seeing the square footage of the plants which have grown your personal bests! My personal best in 1979.5 & was grown on a 900 square foot plant…it was set 20’ out from the “crown”/stump.

3/9/2023 9:22:48 PM

Peosta, Iowa

2424 was grown on 900-950 sq ft, 16 ft out from crown

3/9/2023 11:00:43 PM

Westmoreland, KS

1990 750 square feet around 20 feet out

3/10/2023 9:05:23 AM

Deer Park WA

Our 1803 was grown in 900 square feet in Western Washington and our 1796.5 was grown in 700 square feet in Eastern Washington.

3/10/2023 10:14:47 AM

Diamond, Ohio

2195.5 was 1200 square feet 19 feet out on main.

3/10/2023 1:42:12 PM

Western NY

2006, 2365, and 2200 were all roughly 900 sqft.

2493 was around 1500sqft (19' out) but I think that was overkill.

3/10/2023 1:50:44 PM

Stanwood, Washington

1223 in 250 SF

3/10/2023 2:05:49 PM

Watlington, UK

Heaviest weight per sq ft would be interesting. FWIW my 1769 was grown in 450sq ft which is 3.93lbs per sq ft

3/10/2023 2:17:30 PM

Ironton, ohio

1275 in 600sqft….hope to push that up to 16-1800lbs in 600sqft

3/10/2023 2:32:10 PM

Austin MN

1989.5 was around 16’ out and 900-1000sqft

3/10/2023 3:50:33 PM

Eugene,OR

Come on everyone, this is useful information! We will all be prepping growing sites very soon! There are decisions to be made & sq ft per plant is a big one!

3/10/2023 3:50:58 PM

Dillonvale, Ohio

2195 was on a 1000 sq ft plant

3/10/2023 4:05:03 PM

That State Up North

1893.5 squash on jungle vine pattern about 15 ft out main vine 800 sq ft
1822.5 pumpkin on larger jungle vine pattern maybe close to 20 ft out if measuring along main and then secondary on a secondary vine about 1000+ sq ft plant

"jungle vine" meaning I was out of the country some, and very busy with work so I didn't have time to prune and burry regularly so I had to check in every 2-3 weeks and hack the plants into shape pruning and terminating as much as I could

I think it is very interesting to keep track of sq ft of plant at pollination, again at day 30, and a final total sq ft. I hope to do a better job this year.

3/10/2023 6:53:25 PM

Cheshire Ma USA

2045 was 13' out 850 sf

3/10/2023 8:07:00 PM

Anchorage Alaska

2147 was grown in 700 sq ft , for both roots and plant ,as I grow in a 24 inch raised bed greenhouse , at about 16 ft out, for 85 days after pollination

3/10/2023 11:33:49 PM

Grittyville, WA

Gerald, that would be an interesting topic. Mine consistently like to plateau at around 3.66 lbs per square foot and I figure that must be some sort of baseline/ average potential.

3/11/2023 5:28:17 AM

Merrimack NH

2359 & 2128 last year somewhere between 1000-1,100 square feet each.

3/11/2023 12:59:38 PM

Deer Park, WI

Excellent use of proper terminology (crown). My query of top performing pumpkins seems to be landing in the 900sq ft ballpark. correlation/causation? I dunno. But we all know there's a balance to be struck betwixt vegetative growth and fruit growth. can be difficult to squeeze more than 900 sq ft of vegetation by day 30 of pumpkin growth. Maybe nature has determined ~900 sq ft is the sweet spot for what we can achieve in northern climes.

3/13/2023 8:04:54 AM

Watlington, UK

@Little Kins it is interesting because if a scatter graph could be plotted then the sq ft sweet spot would become apparent. As the saying grows, 'we're growing fruit not salad'

3/13/2023 8:15:05 AM

Austin MN

Joe, one thing I learned from Travis is to always have fresh growth. I terminated the main at the fruit last year and let the two secondary’s behind it become new mains and fill in in front of the fruit in a pitch fork pattern. I let this growth go until it was picked. As the fruit grew I would remove old vines and let the new ones take their place. In my humble opinion terminating the main made the secondary’s grow even fast to fill in (same affect as pinching back flowers) plus the growth in front of the fruit all backed into the vines behind it.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is I had 900 ish sqft but it was always new if I could help it the old was removed throughout the season.

3/13/2023 12:19:07 PM

New Castle, Indiana

I guess the general consensus seems to be roughly 900sqft but you may or may not use all of it. I have that amount of space but I'm actually planting FP's and watermelon in the area as my AG, but priority will be given to the AG plant if it decides to spill over to the other areas. More of a game time decision for me.

3/13/2023 12:28:50 PM

Grittyville, WA

There's plenty of anecdotes to suggest that the parts of the plant closer to the pumpkin do contribute more... there have been folks who have gotten like 10 lbs per leaf on plants smaller than 150 sq ft then the top 150 sq ft growers have been getting 4-6 lbs per sq ft (once the allowed overhang of the leaves is taken into account) and then for really large plants the production drops to 2-3 lbs per square foot. It should be possible to model this. The nutrient guru I watch says iron, nitrogen, magnesium, I think manganese/potassium... and maybe CO2 also, are the things that can really boost sugar production and this would help improve the lbs per square foot.

3/13/2023 12:42:53 PM

Benson, MN

1966.5, 1887.5 and 1872 were all 11-1200 sq ft and roughly 16-18 ft out. Also had roughly 750 sq ft of plant at pollination.

3/13/2023 12:49:05 PM

Grittyville, WA

Here is an anecdote that suggests 15 lbs per square ft may be possible (figuring that a large leaf is probably 2 sq ft) but if a leaf is 3 sq ft then it drops to about 10 lbs. of production per square foot.

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Diary/DiaryViewOne.asp?eid=335498

3/13/2023 1:11:00 PM

Kutztown, PA

1,120 - grown with 400 sf and stump cut off on day of pollination.

3/13/2023 4:05:59 PM

Lodi, California

1375 divided by 150 square feet comes out to 9 pounds per square foot, though it's comparing apples to oranges since in the 150sf contest you are doing everything to maximize yield in a small area, packing leaves in, and the roots can grow as big as they can

3/13/2023 11:35:56 PM

Deer Park, WI

Because data tells a story, here's the analysis so far:

n=20, pumpkins 1800lbs +

Average weight: 2102.9
Average sq foot    990.8
Average distance from crown: 17.3

3/14/2023 7:10:28 PM

Grittyville, WA

Ashton, its important to note that because leaves are allowed to overhang the measured edge of the patch, a 150 sq ft plot should in most cases be equivalent to 200-250 square feet of regular patch. Look at the math for a narrow 150 patch: 6 x 25 = 150 but if the leaves hang 2' over both of the long sides, that adds 4 x 25 = 100 so more foliage, so really its like 250 sq ft in terms of a conventional patch. But 6+ lbs per square ft is still impressive, even with that extra foliage taken into account, the top 150 sq ft growers are getting around double the production that ordinary growers are getting. Thanks Vineman for your patience with me for muddying up your post with side chat.

3/14/2023 9:14:46 PM

Wisconsin

2106 around 1000, 2261 and 2520 were around 1100-1150

3/15/2023 12:07:41 PM

Sharon, MA

My 2240.5 Was grown in 1200 sq ft

3/16/2023 9:57:24 AM

Western NY

So what's the smallest 2k+ square footage that we know of? Dale is smallest so far at 700 unless I missed smaller.

3/17/2023 8:04:49 AM

New Castle, Indiana

I'm just going to throw this out there as I haven't done this yet for myself. There's different ways to handle vines. I have been advised to not allow tertiary vines and rely mainly on training and organizing the secondaries. Also some will lop off the main a certain distance from the keeper. I could see keeping it around 400 sqft if you were to do those things.

3/17/2023 8:35:31 AM

Mission Viejo, CA

My 1240 was grown on a 350 square foot plant, about 15' out.

3/17/2023 11:50:52 AM

Littlerock, WA

My 2030 squash was 675 sq feet and my 1997 squash was 750 sq ft. The 1109 Jutras just wasn't interested in growing a lot of plant both times I grew it. My 2002 was 900 sq ft.

3/17/2023 12:40:51 PM

Elk County, PA

Interesting discussion I wonder when diminishing returns kick in. If I had to guess probably starts to drop off around 600sqft. Another thought, would counting secondaries be just as effective way as opposed to sq-ft. Reasoning, I live in cooler climate I rarely rarely get those it grew a foot over night deals. But I have the same amount of secondaries. With that logic, would that be an equal to SQFT? Probably not, but what do I know :)

3/17/2023 5:02:24 PM

Deer Park, WI

Please keep the weights, sq ft'ages, and distance set data coming. I'll compile, analyze, and present as an article of sorts for the community.

Thanks to those who contributed thus far and to Vineman for getting this party started.

3/17/2023 5:08:11 PM

Boscawen, NH

Joe, it might be helpful if you also looked at a second set of data points that being square footage at 65 DAP. Almost all of my 2000+ pumpkins where about taping 2000 at or around that day and most had about 700-800 square ft. of plant. Fruit sink is usually sharply declining at that point and returning a lot of sink to the plant resulting in faster vegetative growth. End of season most of my plants are 1200 square feet.

3/18/2023 9:07:58 AM

Boscawen, NH

The exception to the above was my 2359 from last year. That plant was already at 1400 sq. ft. at 50 DAP and ended the season around 2300 square ft. Almost all of my pumpkins have been pollinated between 14 and 16 feet out on the main.

3/18/2023 9:11:44 AM

Torrance, Ca.

All my 1400 to 1700 plus fruit have been grown in 800 to 1000 sq ft of plant. I use to pollinate way out but seem to do better at 12' to 14' for my size patch.
Ever since I started growing a lot more plants from the vines just behind the pumpkin and wrapping them out in front of the fruit, I started getting much growth curves.

I just try and copy Andy and Geddes and go from there.:)

3/25/2023 12:10:11 PM