Charles A. Mullins

The pumpkin cultivars were highly productive, and fruit size was very large for most of the large fruited cultivars. ‘Autumn King’, ‘Gold Rush’, ‘Mother Lode’, ‘Magic Lantern’, ‘Gold Fever’, ‘HMX 6689', and ‘HMX 9698' produced a high tonnage of large fruit. The small fruited cultivars performed well, although size and appearance varied with cultivar.

Pumpkins are grown in large commercial acreage for the Halloween market in Tennessee. An estimated 3500 acres of pumpkins are produced in Tennessee, with over half on the Cumberland Plateau. Pumpkins have been a profitable crop in recent years, and acreage production seems to increase each year. Several tobacco and row crop producers have considered or actually produced pumpkins as an alternative crop. Pumpkin production has many problems that need to be addressed for successful production of pumpkins. Weed control can be a problem in pumpkins as labeled herbicides fail to control all species of weeds adequately. Insecticides and fungicides need to be applied on a 7 to 10 day frequency. Bees are needed for pollination. Pumpkins require a fairly high degree of management for successful results. An experiment was conducted at the Plateau Experiment Station at Crossville, TN in 2000 to evaluate performance of 21 pumpkin cultivars.

The site was prepared for planting by conventional tillage methods. Fertilizer was broadcast at 400 lb/A of 15-15-15 and incorporated with a disk on May 22. Bensulide (Prefar) was applied at 6.0 lb ai/A on May 31 and soil incorprated with the final disking. Plots were direct seeded with the selected cultivars on June 1. Plot size was one row, with a spacing of 12 by 20 ft. Each row contained 5 hills with 3 seeds/hill. After germination, hills were thinned to 2 plants/hill. Experimental plot design was a randomized complete block with four replications. A preemergence application of clomazone (Command) at 0.375 lb ai/A was made on June 3.

Insect control was by esfenvalerate (Asana) at 0.05 lb ai/A alternated with carbaryl (Sevin) at 1.0 lb ai/A on a 7 to 10 day frequency. Fungicides were azoxystrobin (Quadris) at 0.25 lb ai/A alternated with a combination of chlorothalonil (Bravo) at 2.0 lb ai/A and myclobutanil (Nova) at 0.125 lb ai/A applied with each insecticide treatment. Pumpkins were harvested on Sept 27 and 28. Harvested pumpkins were sorted according to sizes of over 20 lb, 15 to 20 lb, 10 to 15 lb, and less than 10 lb. Number and weight of pumpkins in each weight range were recorded. Quality ratings were made at harvest. All ratings were on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 the most desirable. All data were analyzed by analysis of variance methods, and means were separated by Duncan’s multiple range tests at the 0.05 level.

‘HMX 6689' produced more total tons of pumpkins than all cultivars except ‘Autumn King’, ‘Magic Lantern’ and ‘Mother Lode’ (Table 1). ‘Baby Pam’ and ‘Wee-B-Little’ produced less tonnage than all cultivars except ‘Peek-A-Boo’ and ‘RWS 6260'. The six small fruited cultivars did not produce any pumpkins that weighed over 10 lb. ‘Hybrid Pam’ produced a higher tonnage in the less than 10 lb class than any other cultivar. ‘Gold Rush’ produced a larger tonnage that weighed over 20 lb per pumpkin than all cultivars except ‘Gold Strike’, ‘Howden’, ‘HMX 6689', ‘HMX 9698' and ‘Mother Lode'. ‘Appalachian’ produced a higher tonnage that weighed between 15 and 20 lb per pumpkin than all cultivars except ‘Gold Fever’ and ‘HMX 6689'. Fruit of ‘HMX 9698', ‘HMX 6689', ‘Autumn King’ and ‘Gold Strike’ averaged over 20 lb per pumpkin. ‘Gold Rush’, ‘Howden’, and ‘Mother Lode’ fruit averaged almost 20 lb per pumpkin.

‘Touch of Autumn’ and ‘Wee-B-Little’ produced more pumpkins per acre and more pumpkins that weighed less than 10 lb per pumpkin than any other cultivar (Table 2). Yields in number of fruit per acre generally were very high and ‘Howden’, the check cultivar, produced 2450 pumpkins per acre. This is a high yield since the row spacing was 12 ft in order to help separate the cultivars at harvest. ‘Autumn King’ produced more fruit that weighed over 20 lb per pumpkin than all cultivars except ‘Appalachian’, Gold Rush’, and ‘Mother Lode’. ‘Magic Lantern’ and ‘HMX 6689' produced more pumpkins per acre in the 15 to 20 lb class than all cultivars except ‘Appalachian’ and ‘Gold Fever’.

Most cultivars were rated high for quality characteristics (Table 3). ‘HMX 4694', ‘HMX 9698', ‘Magic Lantern’ and ‘Merlin’ were among cultivars rated high for fruit color. Ratings for appearance were not significantly different due to cultivar. Fruit of ‘Gold Rush’ and ‘Howdy Doody’ had very large and nice stems. Cultivars varied in uniformity, as size and shape of pumpkins was not uniform within a cultivar. ‘Wee-B-Little’ was rated as one of the most uniform cultivars in fruit type. Fruit of ‘Autumn King’ was among the largest in diameter and fruit of ‘Wee-B-Little’ was among the lowest in diameter. ‘Gold Rush’ was among cultivars with the most length while ‘Wee-B-Little’ was among cultivars with the least fruit length.

Table 1. Yield in tons per acre of different size classes of pumpkin cultivars at The University of Tennessee Plateau Experiment Station at Crossville, 2000.

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Copyright © 1999 by The University of Tennessee. All rights reserved.

This research represents one season's data and does not constitute recommendations.  After sufficient data is collected over the appropriate number of seasons, final recommendations will be made through research and extension publications.