From

Location

Message

Date Posted

British Columbia, Canada

I think I've been around here for like 12 years and this is the first time that I don't see a really obvious top seed that every wants. Looking at the 2019 results, nothing really jumps out at me like the way they used to. 998 pukos, 1385 jutras, 1161 rodonis, 1725 harp, 2009 wallace, 2145 mcmullen, and now it's kinda quiet. How come?

2/13/2020 1:20:06 AM

Germany

That´s true, there´s no particular seed sticking out of bunch of good ones, but to be honest I´m not surprised. You´ve mentioned seeds such as 1385 Jutras, 1161 Rodonis, 1725 Harp (which have produced new world records), and seeds from pumpkins which actually are WRs at their time (1725 Harp, 2009 Wallace). Now we are living in a time frame which has to deal with a great number of great and heavy pumpkins which are no striking outliers (because the current WR has been an outlier some years ago) and the availability of a great pool of great genetics (thanks to the 2145, some of its offspring and some other gib ones, which went into many crosses). The availability of so many good seeds weakens the focus on a particular seed, and this creates the next "problem", which is that many good seeds have all been planted by a rather low number of growers, which then contributes to a rather blurry picture of seed stock performance. It will be hard to find a seed stock which produced 10 - 20 top 100 pumpkins within maybe two years. In 2018/19 the 1911 Urena was a hot seed (guess why), and a look into the 2019 charts reveals that 5 of them landed amongst the top 30 pumpkins. However, their relative positions among so many other pumpkins from a great variety of seeds clearly tells that the other seeds actually had the same (or maybe better) qualities, who knows. Hence, there´s no point for a preference of one of those seeds over the other.

2/13/2020 9:17:56 AM

Germany

3rd line "...some other big ones..." (bloody typo)

2/13/2020 9:18:57 AM

Plymouth, MN

I agree. 9 of 2019's top 20 were grown from a 2018 seed. Of these 9, none of them had the same mother. Maybe there's some super special seed out there, but not enough of any one seed is grown enough by top growers to really come to a sound conclusion.

2/13/2020 12:30:02 PM

Colorado

That's part of the fun. That the best seed stock is in question.Tons of seed stocks with great potential. The best? who knows/time will answer maybe.

2/13/2020 1:17:00 PM

Midway, UT

2005 Haist I think should be at the top of a grower's list. Hard to beat the numbers, even though only a handful were grown last year. Biggest pumpkin grown last year and none of the ones grown went light. I was one of those who grew it last year. Got a personal best on it in a season of horrible weather. Going to plant another one this year.

2/13/2020 5:24:53 PM

Colo Springs CO

I've had theories about how we arrived to this point. Go to the genetics message board if you would like to debate this topic. The more input the better chances are that we can develop another 2145 or 2009 in the near future. Jamie mirrors my pick, the 2005 looks pretty good.

2/13/2020 11:26:39 PM

Muddy Waters

2145 has a 3000 lber in it keep growing it

2/14/2020 5:44:40 PM

I bet there is multiple pumpkins that are full of 3000lb seeds but no one realizes it yet because those seeds haven't been grown or pushed to the limits by one of top growers yet.

2/19/2020 9:06:09 PM

Grittyville, WA

I think the 2066 Geddes should be in the mix.

2/19/2020 11:37:20 PM