KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 October 27, 2016 \u2013 Rhode Island\u2019s more than 100 commercial pumpkin farmers have been battling a fungus called powdery mildew that covers the leaves of pumpkin plants with a white film and reduces the size and weight of the pumpkins each plant produces. Some also become infected with black rot, a disease that looks as bad as it sounds.<\/p>\n
With seed companies now offering new pumpkin varieties that are supposedly disease resistant, a 溏心vlog免费B站 researcher has undertaken a scientific \u201cpumpkin trial\u201d to identify the best varieties for farmers to grow in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cPumpkins are a very big industry in Rhode Island,\u201d said Rebecca Brown, 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of plant sciences and an expert in growing vegetables. \u201cAlmost 10 percent of the farmers in the state grow pumpkins, and pumpkins are a big driver of agri-tourism in the fall. Pumpkin picking, hayrides and corn mazes are an important source of income for our farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown and her students planted 17 varieties of pumpkins in a 3-acre section of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Agronomy Farm in June. They collected data on disease responses throughout the growing season, counted how many pumpkins were marketable from each plant, and weighed and measured each pumpkin when they were harvested in late September.<\/p>\n
It was a challenging year to conduct such a study.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a good year for pumpkins in the region due to the drought,\u201d Brown said. \u201cOur pumpkins may have been more affected than the commercial growers because our capacity to irrigate at 溏心vlog免费B站 is not as good as at commercial farms.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a result, seed varieties that were supposed to grow pumpkins to about 25 pounds instead produced 15-pound pumpkins.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we harvested them, the size was what we expected, but their weight was light,\u201d she said. \u201cThe biggest pumpkin in the field was about 40 pounds, but the average was a lot lower. And since farmers generally sell pumpkins by the pound, that\u2019s not good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, some varieties proved to be better than others. Brown\u2019s favorite, a variety called Camaro, averaged 62 marketable pumpkins per plot \u2013 each plot contained 33 to 45 plants \u2013 and the plants were somewhat compact, enabling farmers to grow twice as many plants in their fields than other varieties.<\/p>\n
溏心vlog免费B站 300 of the pumpkins grown in the trial were given to 105 溏心vlog免费B站 Master Gardeners to place on their doorsteps for the second stage of the project. In an effort to determine the \u201cdoorstep life\u201d of a Halloween pumpkin, the gardeners have been instructed to leave the pumpkins outdoors and report to Brown when they begin to rot.<\/p>\n
The results of this component of the study won\u2019t be completed for about another month, when the 溏心vlog免费B站 researcher will provide local pumpkin farmers with a final report on the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re not carved, they should last until about Thanksgiving,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIf they\u2019re carved, they start rotting sooner. But we\u2019ll just have to wait and see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 October 27, 2016 \u2013 Rhode Island\u2019s more than 100 commercial pumpkin farmers have been battling a fungus called powdery mildew that covers the leaves of pumpkin plants with a white film and reduces the size and weight of the pumpkins each plant produces. Some also become infected with black rot, a disease […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}