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Netherlands

While we wait for a lot of sites to upload their results, here are some "useless" facts distilled from the GPC list.

1. Of 1114 sound pumpkin entries, 3 were grown from the 2020 Werner. But from the 17 damaged pumpkins with lineage, also 3 were grown from the 2020 Werner. That is 65x more damaged than whole...
2. Many people grew the 1916 Barron for % heavy. Except for two really heavy ones, all the other 1916 seeds went on average 1.14% light...
3. Of the larger pumpkins, the 888 Tingley leads the light division at -36%.
4. Of the larger pumpkins, the 1091 Haan leads the heavy division at 42% heavy.
5. Of the 1100+ entries, not one single mother produced a progeny with the same weight as itself. The closest is the 708 Engel which grew from a 703 lb mother.
6. The most remarkable seeds listed are: Wallace Whopper, Rocky 2 Barlow, Porkshop, Silver Bullet and Eric Shaw 20039.

10/3/2016 11:15:30 AM

Randlett, Oklahoma

Awesome! I find the first two rather interesting. Thanks for sharing

10/3/2016 12:54:16 PM

Menomonie, WI (mail@gr8pumpkin.net)

There has to be a data entry on the 1091 Haan. For one of my pumpkins to go 42% heavy on my 1143 Engel seems very strange. If it is correct I will take it :)

10/3/2016 1:24:07 PM

Wallingford,CT

Selecting seeds to grow heavy fruit is the objective of many growers. Brad seems to characterize the 1916 Barron as a seed that on average goes slightly light with 2 exceptions. Not surprisingly I have a completely different view of the seed. I of course base my opinion of the seed on the Team-Pumpkin Chart. I don’t know if Brad looked at all the years results or only the current year. I looked at all the years and found 30 offspring with an average +8%. Even if the ‘two really heavy ones’ are omitted I get +6%. The highest % was +27 and the lowest was -6 with 26 ‘heavy’ pumpkins and only 3 light ones (one is equal to the chart estimate).
Now if your objective is to select heavy to the chart seeds to grow then the standard chart is the wrong tool. The idea of one exact value for any OTT is misleading because there is a statistical population to represent each OTT. A pumpkin is not heavy or light unless it is outside the statistical range for its OTT which is the bases for the Team-Pumpkin Enhanced Chart. When each of the 30 Barron pumpkins is compared to our Enhanced chart there are 12 that exceed the upper range for its own OTT and NONE that fall below. This 12 out of 30 above the range along with the 26/3, heavy/light split should make it a very good candidate to grow heavy to the chart pumpkins.
You will be hard pressed to find another seed with as good a track record. All of this says nothing about how big or how heavy the offspring be but only will they be ‘heavy to the chart’.

10/3/2016 1:43:16 PM

Brownsville, MD

% heavy/light is a tricky statistic... with a small sample size, a single fruit weighing extremely light or extremely heavy can skew the perception of a seed in a major way. A great example of this was the 1354 Checkon- it grew a 1469lb world record in a year when there was a drought in Pennsylvania, but that fruit was over 440" OTT and weighed extremely light. The fact that the 1469 weighed so light probably explains why very few 1354's were planted in following years, but as more 1354's were planted, it became apparent that the 1469 was an anomaly as most other 1354 Checkon offspring weighed slightly heavy to the chart. I remember looking at results from the 1354 several years ago and the average % +/- was somewhere between 5-10% heavy for 1354 offspring when omitting the 1469.

Something to take into consideration when looking at % heavy/light is the performance of other plants in that grower's patch. If everything in the patch weighed over 10% heavy, that one that weighed 15% heavy isn't as much of an outlier as you may believe at first- that grower clearly has done something right to get % heavy. A good example for this sort of comparison is to look at Brett Hester's results in 2007- He grew a 1400lber on a 1068 Wallace that weighed -7% light while he had several other pumpkins -897 Hester, 1370 Rose, 898 Knauss, 842 Eaton- weigh 10% heavy or more. Likewise, if you grow 6 plants and 5 pumpkins weigh on chart and 1 weighs +20%, you have compelling evidence that your 20% heavy pumpkin is a genetic freak.

I'm not as familiar with the 1916 Barron stats as previous posters; I just wanted to add that accurately projecting a seed's potential to grow heavy or light can be very difficult in some circumstances, such as small sample size, extreme outliers, and when you don't look at comparative data.

10/3/2016 3:54:12 PM

Brownsville, MD

2 more points on % heavy/light

1- in 2008, I grew a pumpkin on the 695 Handy that was taping over 1000lbs, but I left home for college in September and it didn't grow much after that- probably quit growing mid-September- and wasn't weighed until the second weekend in October. It weighed -13% light and there's a big enough sample of 695 offspring to state clearly that -13% light is not representative of the 695's genetic potential to grow heavy pumpkins. There's a metric that is not tracked at all- the number of days between the last measurable growth and the official weight.

2- There was some discussion earlier this year regarding inconsistencies in measuring OTT between different sites- something that is certainly worth following up on.

10/3/2016 4:11:12 PM

Buffalo, MN (Billsbigpumpkins@hotmail.com)

The 1091 Haan is incorrect the correction has been sent. I believe that the OTT was 375 not 325. Which makes it go lite.
Bill

10/3/2016 5:21:16 PM

Cheyenne,WY

I updated http://tools.pumpkinfanatic.com since I was curious about how the 2145.5 McMullen 2015 seed is performing.

I might make a page to track heaviest grown with a drop down for the user to select the year.

10/3/2016 11:42:06 PM

Netherlands

Bart, the reason I put "useless" in parenthesis, was because I figured none of the facts I presented could be taken seriously. They were just to show how incorrect statistics can be, like the %heavy and %light on pumpkins because of typing errors. But using the GPC charts, the 1916 Barron went light this year if you take away the top 2, which of course is by no means fair. This was because two of them went 8% and 6% light. If you include the 2 really heavy ones, the Barron went 3.4% heavy this year.

The only serious part to this post, is that not all seeds will do what we hope or expect them to do.

10/4/2016 3:45:26 AM

Randlett, Oklahoma

While we are talking about the 1916. I see on Ron's website his 1767 is listed as 1916 xself. But if you look up the 1767 on pumpkin finatic it is listed as 1916x2009. Anyone know which is right? I assume rons website?

10/4/2016 12:13:41 PM

Sissonville wva

1767 is 1916xself acording to ron

10/7/2016 12:21:52 PM