From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Nottingham, UK

My mind started to wonder the other day (always dangerous) and I got thinking about growth vs daylight

I understand that the plant builds up energy through photosynthesis throughout the day and come night time stored energy gets used for pumpkin growth. I also observe this through the tiny amount of day time growth.

To the point.....

I wonder what the optimum ratio of daylight to nightime hours would be if all over conditions were optimum.

I also wonder if we could improve on growth if say we could turn the sunlight on for 2 hours and then off for a bit for growth and carry on like that? Would take a controlled environment with artificial light mimicking day/night and the other as the experimental. I wonder if plants can switch on and off like that, if it stresses them too much.
I guess if you think of the cell growth then it must take time to reach optimim rate and on/off might retard it.

Just off loading my thoughts which are soon to be shot down with reason ;)

8/23/2011 7:58:39 AM

Niagara Falls,NY

I was wondering sort of the same thing.I read some where that areas like Alaska that have longer periods of day light grow vegetables faster and bigger because of the extra day light.I was wondering if giving the pumpkins extra light,especially when they are young,would speed up growth.May be like putting lights over the plants on a timer to come on 2 hrs before day light and 2 hrs longer at night.Or something like that. Might help,might not,who knows?

8/23/2011 8:57:37 AM

Eastern Pennsylvania

The best lights are still far from the candlepower produced by the sun even on a cloudy day.

8/23/2011 9:17:28 AM

Germany

Last year I had recorded OTT measurements over a few weeks twice a day (for one of my pumpkins), had measured in the morning and in the evening, and big SURPRISE!: Growth rate was similar for both day and night (I used to use intervals of 12 hours for measurements). Hence, even at daytime the pumpkin can push heaps of things into the fruit, and therefore a maximum of daylight should be helpful for pumpkin growth by means of maximum sugar production. Also, the longer days usually are the warmer days...also beneficial for pumpkin growth. It might thus be quite good to have fruit set at beginning of June, but the disadvantage of the early pollination might be a short main behind the pumpkin and a slow takeoff resulting therefrom. The ideal would be: A large young plant with a female at 13...16 feet to be pollinated at the beginning of June (in the northern hemisphere) in order to have peak daylight centered within the first 40 or 50 days of the pumpkin´s life. There´s heaps of factors to be optimized, e.g. by using a permanent greenhouse or early transplanting into a temporary hoop house etc. etc., otherwise people wouldn´t do that effort if a later pollination and pumpkin growth during shorter (and cooler) days was beneficial.

8/23/2011 9:56:07 AM