hello. I’m a very avid 17 year old gardener who enjoys growing vine plants. Escpecially Pumpkins. The last few years, I’ve been stuck with the variety called big max. These pumpkins grow huge. The largest record weight I’ve grown one of these pumpkins was 127.85 lbs. It was huge. The only problem I have is that I plant multiple pumpkin plants a year. Any where from 25-75 seed. They all receive optimal spacing, excellent soil conditions, and after every harvest, I send a soil sample to a lab to find out if any nutrients are lacking in the soil. It might be a little extreme, but I have enough funds I’ve saved to be able to do that. So I plant a lot of seed, right? Each plant should harvest 2-3 decent sized pumpkins, or 1 large one. Well, if that’s the case, why do I usually receive only 12-18 pumpkins each year? I make sure they are fertilized, they aren’t under or over watered, and pest certainly aren’t the problem. I use pesticides to discourage them. I get help from bees to pollinate the flowers, and I also self pollinate as well. If anyone has any idea what is going on, please let me know. I sell the pumpkins at the farmers market in the town, and the yield doesn’t help with selling.
Not un-common. Rootstock on squash plants is a thing. And is surprisingly easy{though tedious for my old hands} to graft. Many use White Giant Cushaw Squash. {Great for size} I generally used Japanese Tetsukabuto Winter Squash. {great for fruit yield}.
I’m not going to lie, it’s kind a difficult to know what’s going on without seeing it. It sounds like you are doing everything right, so I’d recommend keeping records and tracking the pumpkins better.
Is the amount of flowers you are seeing per plant match the amount of pumpkins you are getting? For example, is every plant setting 2-3 female flowers and keeping those pumpkins/the pumpkins are setting from those flowers? You can use those little flags that construction projects use to mark where flowers where so you don’t forget.
Is the number of pumpkins consistent? Like you had twenty pumpkins one day, but it went down to eighteen the next, then down to sixteen. If you are losing pumpkins, might be worth putting up a game camera.
If you have beautiful foliage but aren’t getting alot of flowers or enough flowers setting, it could be you are adding too much nitrogen, and it’s encouraging foliage production and flower drop over pumpkin production.
Is Big Max the only variety doing this? If it’s the only one you grow, try another large variety this year and see if you have the same problem. There are some large white varieties that are pretty and might sell well too.
Mainly I have grown Cow and Seminole Pumpkins usually. The last few years we have used different squash as pumpkin stand ins. Mainly butternut types or Acorn and Jarrandale.
There are so many good ones it is tough to settle on one.
Yes you get more blooms then fruit. Squashes tend to set more fruit. But we also thin sometimes. Normally I am very pleased with 4 to 5 Cow or Seminole per vine. But threes of good size are very good.
I’d guess growing for great size is done as singles.
Wish we had more space for hard shell Pumpkin/squash. But the wife grows a lot of soft squash.
Looking to explore Black Futsu and Green Ayote this year.
The flowers I’m getting don’t in fact match what I’m getting. I get an average over all the plants, about 150 flowers, with just over 50% being female flowers. I did install a game camera, but It doesn’t show much happening. After the flowers are pollinated, they grow for like 24 hours, then the fall off. They don’t shrivel or anything, they just fall off. The fertilizer I use doesn’t include hydrogen while the plants are flowering. After that when the pumpkins show visible substantial growth, I then use fertilizer with hydrogen.
Lack of pollinators is a good bet.
I self pollinate as well, and I may or may not have a beehive
I would hand pollinate some. I’ve grown jarrahdale for a few years in space surrounded by native gardens literally humming with pollinators. We’ll see 3-4 bees in each flower in the morning, yet, I’ll have a really low pollination rate if I don’t hand pollinate. Lots of early aborted fruit until I break out the paint brushes and send my kids loose. For my area, I suspect the high humidity/moisture on the pollen is interfering with insect pollination.
I do self pollinate, If I feel the bees are not doing enough.
Have you considered whether excess heat could be a factor? Lots of days over 95 without protection might impact fruit set or development?
We’ve added pumpkins to our planting. We’ve grown a decent amount for several years. Typically we spend anywhere from 2 to 4 hundred dollars in seed. So we grow quite a lot.
If you are not seeing anything obvious in your limited production, I would suggest branching out to more varieties. There are some very beautiful pumpkins, which people really like.
People come to our pumpkin patch for two reasons. One is selection (we try to grow the weirdest pumpkins we can find, along with traditional ones). And because we plant our pumpkins later than most, they last a really long time past the fall.
thank you for that advice. I will try to branch out, and find other varieties of pumpkins that may thrive and do better.
We are very hot and humid here. And do no pollination manually. Look for varieties that set high amounts of fruits. Seminole. I think that would set in a nuclear winter.
A bit of powdery mildew was the only problem we had with it. But that went away after grafting. And the vines are more vigorous and fruit more colored inside.