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Antwerp, Belgium

Let's say you have a plant with 3 side vines.

The pumpkin you want to keep is on one of these vines.

Do the main and the other 2 side vines contribute
equally to the nutrition the fruit gets from the leaves
of the vine the fruit is on?

This question because logically you would assume
only the vine with the pumpkin on it,brings nutrition
to the pumpkin.

Thanks in advance for any reaction.

7/19/2014 1:18:34 AM

Muddy Waters

Its all theory,But it appears all the plant between the stump & fruit contribute mostly to the fruits growth.Even on the maters this seems to be the opinion of a lot of growers.So thinking farther out on the plant is better.But wait Ben Meijer grew a 2328 on plant with the kin smack dab in the middle of the plant.Its all theory,Go with your heart!!

7/19/2014 6:57:04 AM

Menomonie, WI (mail@gr8pumpkin.net)

Phloem and Xylome...or something like that

7/19/2014 10:30:10 AM

Upa Creek, MO

One way an accomplished grower said it was the plants seem to have a harder time finding the pumpkin on a side vine. I agree 100% since it is a lot more ground to cover or further for the "nutrients" to travel. On the main it's a straight shot. Just my opinion.

7/19/2014 1:54:22 PM

Upa Creek, MO

I'm also growing on a side too.

7/19/2014 1:57:05 PM

Colorado

Good question. Beni's pruning and keeping all rooting in close to the pumpkin was interesting.

7/20/2014 12:32:02 AM

Deer Park, WI

Lets disperse conjecture and theory and focus on biological reality.

The plumbing inside a plant is, generally speaking, not so different from the plumbing inside a person, in that every part of the body is connected to every other part via channels. In people, their called veins and arteries. In plants, as Mr. Van Pelt alluded to above, they're called xylem and phloem.

Perhaps another way to visualize this system is to consider how your home is connected to the rest of the world. If you live on a main highway, you undoubtedly have lots of traffic shuttling goodies to and fro. Can the UPS truck that just delivered a package to your door also deliver a package to your cousin eddy in the rural countryside? Why yes it can.

A pumpkin on a side vine has the infrastructure capable of delivering nutrients/water from all other sources on the plant. This is fact. Let me repeat for the disbelievers...this is fact. And if you are still skeptical, a quick flick of the google machine yields hundreds of years of research on plant nutrient translocation physiology.

Now, simply because the infrastructure is in place, doesnt mean the side vine pumpkin is going to vacuum up water and nutrients at an expected breakneck place. Many more factors come into play.

Coming back to our highway metaphor, a pumpkin on the main vine is akin to a house on a freeway...a constant stream of traffic implies the highest volume of delivery, whereas a pumpkin on a side is akin to a house a ways off the freeway.

Ultimately, if you want traffic zipping past your door (read: nutrients delivered to your pumpkin), the strategy is then to encourage traffic in that direction.

this is where strategic pruning may play an integral role.

7/21/2014 11:35:30 AM

Deer Park, WI

If you've read my rants before on this topic (search sink source for previous discussions), you'll know Im a potent advocate for allowing vine tips to grow throughout the season, notably vine tips that have a pumpkin attached.

Vine tips send hormonal signals back through the plumbing of the plant that say "Im still growing out here, send me nutrients" So, if you've got a pumpkin on a secondary, by the end of the season, I'd prune all other vine tips EXCEPT for the one the pumpkin is growing on. This effectively tells the plant that all the "action" is happening on your vine of choice. Foliage and adventitious roots (if you dont know what an adventitious root is, read my trenching article in the how to... section of this website)send their nutrients to where the growth signals are. In this case, you've got a pumpkin and a vine tip screaming "over here, over here".

Much more on this topic for discussion, but there's the nuts and bolts of how it operates. As i mentioned earlier, brush up on the topic of "sink source" relations to understand more about how nutrients are translocated in plants.

Enjoy.

7/21/2014 11:35:34 AM