Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 30 Entries. Monday, January 9 View Page Happy New Year everyone, just did a quick germination test on the seeds from my pumpkin last year and they came back pretty good. Five came up right away with remaining one coming up a week later!!   Monday, January 9 View Page Here is a pic of them.   Friday, January 13 View Page Here is a pic of the patch layout for this year as of now. I am planning on integrating field corn into the mix as a source of wind protection for the plants as indicated by the green lines. The yellow lines indicate the plant borders and you can figure out the rest. The plants won't have the growing area of a typical grower but I believe genetics play a big role in a hotter climate. For this reason I think having more plants will hopefully give me a better chance of breaking my personal best or even the state record but we will have to see!   Sunday, January 15 View Page Did some water calibrations with the impact sprinkler to get an idea of how I want to water the patch in order to get best coverage without any over watered areas. Hopefully I can increase the uniformity with this data.   Sunday, January 15 View Page Here are the results, looks like I will need to do a lot of overlap watering to make things even.   Sunday, January 15 View Page I decided to place the sprinkler near the stump of each plant and let it run in a 180 degree radius. Here is the patch including the sprinkler pattern which is in blue, its a little messy now haha.   Sunday, January 22 View Page Bought some fungicide for the upcoming growing season. The active ingrediant is Myclobutanil which is a group 3 fungicide (demetylation inhibitor). I will have to find another product with a different mode of action to flip flop with so I don't get resistance buildup in the patch.   Sunday, January 29 View Page Here is the line up so far for the upcoming year. 600 Weber (the one I grew last year), 853 Niewenhoff, 1712 Werner, 1469 Marshall, and the 938.5 Marintzer. I have to send out a special thanks to Jacob Marintzer for letting me have some of his seed from his biggest pumpkin as well as the 1469. Check out his profile "Jake" as he may just break the Kansas state record this year, he was pretty close this past year!!   Sunday, January 29 View Page I never posted a pic of the final pumpkin this past year because I got busy with crop things in the later part of this past year. It only made it to around 600 lbs but had a nice shape and color as you can see.   Monday, January 30 View Page Decided on getting the typical seven insecticide which is a Carbamate (Group 1) to pair with the tempo I already have that is a Pyrethroid (Group 3). Just need to decide on another mode of action for the fungicides and we will be set on the plant protection side of things.   Friday, February 3 View Page Recieved some micronutrients today, I know it says citrus on it but who said you could't apply it to pumpkins!!   Friday, February 3 View Page Heres what it has in it.   Monday, February 6 View Page This year I have decided to stray from the pack as far as how I will be managing my pumpkin plants. Typically a grower will prune the plant as it grows to make it nice and organized. However, this year I have decided not to prune my plants due to the fact that I don't have enough time to do it with the family farm and all. I however have decided to only prune the plants when they hit the plant borders that are predetermined. This will allow the plants to recover from a hail storm more quickly due to having many growing points left on the plant. Also with this extra time I will be able to manage the plants more as far as insecticides, fungicides and fertilizer go.   Monday, February 6 View Page Continuing on with the last post about not pruning as much I hope to increase the leaf canopy to shade out the ground. This could reduce temperature in the canopy and increase the heat tolerance of the plants in the hot Kansas summer. Also this increased shading of the ground would reduce weeds and hopefully reduce the temperature of the water being transported by the vines to hopefully cool the fruit during its development.   Monday, February 20 View Page Decided on a standard fungicide for my other mode of action and also bought some powder permethrin which is another pyrethroid. I will probably only use it if I have a bad infestation of insects and need to take them out fast.   Monday, February 27 View Page Soil samples have been taken and I will hopefully have them to the lab tomorrow.   Sunday, March 5 View Page Tested out some oat seed for the upcoming cover crop and it tested in the mid 80's as far as germ goes, should work well!! It will be put in later this month.   Monday, March 6 View Page Soil test are back, it looks like everything is in the higher level and the only major thing left to do is lower the pH with some elemental sulfur.   Monday, March 6 View Page Did a quick sample of some compost that I made this past year. Organic matter is ok and the nitrate came back pretty high so it should be a good source of N.   Friday, March 10 View Page I came up with an idea today about using soybeans as a cover crop and tilling them under just before the pumpkin vines get the them. I would plant them just after the oat cover crop was tilled in. Soybeans have a low C:N ratio so they won't tie up any nitrogen as they decompose. I believe doing this would add oxygen for root growth due to decomposing as well provide a loose soil as the vines grow over top do allow roots to penetrate the soil easily. If anyone has any experience with this feel free to email me with thoughts and ideas.   Monday, March 20 View Page First off sorry about all the sideways pics, and guess what I forgot to turn my phone when I took these next ones!! Put down 20 lbs of elemental sulfur per 1000 square feet today and also rotor tilled it all in, should lower the pH down to around 7.4ish and next year we will see what it is and continue the decent to the 6.5-6.8 range.   Monday, March 20 View Page Rotor tilling everything in.   Tuesday, March 21 View Page Cover crop of oats was put in today, it is equivalent to putting on 100 lbs per acre or 2.3 lbs per 1000 square feet. Everything was watered at the end of the day.   Saturday, April 8 View Page Decided that it maybe better to increase the area of each plant. Instead of having 560 sq. ft. per plant I am increasing it to around 700-800 by planting 4 instead of 5. I will likely use a similar pattern as before as far as how the plants are organized in the patch.   Thursday, April 13 View Page It looks like my season could be done early this year, a job offer came up and I decided to take it which will not allow me to return to the farm this summer. The most I can probably do is just cross some pumpkins to get new genetics for the upcoming year. They won't be huge by any means but the size of the pumpkin has no bearings as far as genetics and performance go in the next growing season. The pumpkin patch at home will probably be converted into a garden in which the oats will be terminated with glyphosate at anthesis and allowed to stand to suppress weeds over the summer. Sweetcorn and/or potatoes will probably be planted and should do well in the patch.   Saturday, April 29 View Page A patch has been found!! I don't know a whole lot about it but we will roll with it. I officially started the first round tonight to try and escape the cold in early spring. I already put one in the patch for fun because it was a practice one but I don't think it will do much considering the cold weather it is going through.   Friday, May 5 View Page They were just pushing out of the soil yesterday and here is 24 hours later. I probably won't wait too long to put them out in the patch to prevent too much shock. All of them came from the pumpkin I grew last year except for the upper right which is a 1381 Tingley. Had 100% germination too!   Monday, May 8 View Page Transplanted two plants from my pumpkin last year into the patch, they are off to a pretty good start so hopefully it stays that way.   Sunday, June 11 View Page Sorry about the long wait for this next post, things have been crazy with corn planting season and everything. While I was home planting corn someone who was spraying drifted roundup onto the pumpkin plants which slowed their growth significantly. However now it seems to of recovered but is much smaller than normal. Hopefully it will take off now. There is actually two pumpkins in the picture, the one on the right is the one that I think I will keep.   Wednesday, June 14 View Page Was able to visit a grower's patch under the username of Jake and WOW what an amazing plant that he has for being growing grown in the ever changing Kansas environment!!