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Russia Looks at Pumpkin Pectin
According to Stephen Daniells of Nutraingredients-USA.com, Russian research indicates that “pectin extracted from pumpkin and then modified using an enzyme could offer an interesting alternative for jams and confectionery.” More

First Pumpkin Seed Oil Created in US
“Pumpkin seed oil is big in Austria and France, where it is used in salads and drizzled over cooked foods, especially roasted meats,” Ken Seguine told Darlene Ramos of The Dunn County News. He’s created the US’ first pumpkin seed oil, a high-end product that imparts the taste of roasted pumpkin seeds to many foods. More

Pumpkin Crop Depends, In Part, On Honey Bees
The news has reported a mysterious malady called “colony collapse disorder” has seriously affected honey bee colonies throughout the U.S. This not only impacts the future of honey production, but crops that depend on honey bees for pollination. According to Terry Bibo of the PJ Journal Star, “Some crops are more vulnerable than others. Corn, for example, does not need bees.” However, honey bees are the main pollinator of pumpkins. Bibo’s story discusses how the decreased honey bee population may not adversely affect the pumpkin crop in Illinois. More

Earlier, I mentioned cross-pollination of pumpkins and winter squash. One thing I did not mention is that not all curcubits can cross-pollinate. In order for one curcubit, which includes squash, cucumbers and melons, as well as pumpkins, to pollinate another, they must be of the same species.

Pumpkins are of the Curcubita pepo, which also includes zucchini, cocozelle, acorn squash, crookneck squash and others. You can tell a C. pepo by its unique characteristics, which include:

• Uniformly colored tan seeds
• Lobed leaves with prickly hairs on the surface of the stems and leaves,
• Hard, roughly angled flower stocks (peduncles), and
• Male flowers with short, thick and conical stamens (androecia).

Pumpkins, as well as other plants such as tomatoes, peppers and corn, will not produce pollen if it is too hot. When temperatures rise into the upper 80s, poor pumpkin pollination is often the result. If the temperatures rise into the 90s, you might as well forget about pollination all together. Poor pollination results in low fruit yield, so the less pollination you get, the less pumpkins you’ll have come autumn.

So, as the climate changes, getting warmer earlier in the year, it is quite possible that your local pumpkin patch will have smaller yields and those farms in the warmest areas may need to switch to other crops.

Just some food for thought.

Did you know that pumpkins can cross pollinate with other winter squashes?

According to Mark Keaton, staff chair for Baxter County at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service, “cross-pollination between squashes and pumpkins will not produce off-flavored or off-colored fruit in this year’s garden, but if the seed is saved for planting next year, the result will be a combination.”

For more information, visit www.baxterbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060726/COLUMNISTS1601/607260306/1002/NEWS17.

Do you live in a warm, dry climate? Then you might want to keep an eye out for powdery mildew if you’re growing your own pumpkins.

Powdery mildew is most commonly found on the upper sides of leaves and appears as white patches and spots.

According to Dona M. Crawford, a master gardener at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County, “powdery mildews are severe in warm, dry climates [because] the fungus does not need the presence of water on the leave surface for infection to occur.”

She recommends to readers of the Times Herald-Record that growing powdery mildew resistant varieties of pumpkin was the best way to avoid this problem.

You can read the rest of her advice at www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/07/28/news_community-gardencol28-07-29.html.

When Ted “Buck” Bradford found an antique, horse-drawn planter on his property, his wife dismissed it as “a pile of rust.”

But, when he decided to plant pumpkins on an acre of their land, he found the planter to be quite useful.

Pumpkin seeds should be planted eight feet apart and the planter’s large wheels covered eight feet each cycle. So with a little ingenuity, he rigged the device to help him plant the seeds and what would have been an all-day task by hand took only two hours!

For more on this story, visit www.stltoday.com/stltoday/neighborhoods/stories.nsf/jeffersoncounty/news/story/8E49F233225DB152862571AF00505EDB?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2C%22rust%22+AND+%22pile%22.

“Pumpkin seeds can be started indoors in early May,” Erwin Goldstein wrote in his column for the Norwich Bulletin. “Or we can plant them outdoors in late May.”

In areas where the ground is still cold in late May, he recommends warming the soil first by placing black plastic over the bed for a few days.

And, if you live in an area where woodchucks also live – watch out for them! Woodchucks “enjoy pumpkins,” he says.

For more advice, visit www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060727/LIFESTYLE/607270307/1024.

Even though pumpkins are commonly associated with autumn, they are really warm-season plants. Pumpkin seeds cannot germinate in cold soil, and seedlings are easily injured by frost. So, the best time to plant your pumpkin, at least in the United States, is from late May to early July depending on your location. If you want to use them for Halloween, don’t plant them too early — otherwise the fruit may soften and rot before you are ready to use them.

Bees are necessary for pollinating pumpkins, so be careful with insecticides. If you use them, apply only in late afternoon or early evening when the blossoms have closed for the day and bees are no longer visiting the blossoms. Since new blossoms open each day and bees only alight upon open blossoms, they should be safe from contact with any potentially deadly sprays.

Don’t be worried if your plant’s first blossoms don’t develop into fruit. It is common in cucurbits (the family to which pumpkins belong) to have first blossoms that are male. These flowers attract the bees and help establish their route to the blooming vine. Then, once the female flowers bloom, the bees will already be regular visitors to the vine and will pollinate them.

For more information on growing your own pumpkins, check out:

www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/veggies/pumpkin1.html
www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s-2-28-274,00.html
www.sadako.com/pumpkin/growing.html
www.pumpkinnook.com/growing.htm

Or use “grow pumpkins” as key words in your favorite search engine.

“The ideal climate for growing pumpkins lies 4-5 degrees north and south of the 45th parallel,” says Joe Ailts of SeedOutlet.com. “Climates in these areas have sunny warm summers, with an appreciable amount of rain from May through September.” They also don’t get frost in July. In addition, pumpkins thrive when the relative humidity is about 60%.

But, you can’t guarantee the weather and when things stray from the ideal or even the norm, crops can be adversely affected. In regions that have experienced heavy rainfall, pumpkins are particularly affected by Phytophthora blight, according to The American Phytopathological Society.

Phytophthora blight “has been described as the ‘most destructive disease of cucurbits’ because ‘nothing causes greater loss’,” says Margaret Tuttle McGrath of Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center. “Total crop loss has occurred in some fields.”

So, as a cook, how does all this affect you? Well, if you’re going to use fresh pumpkin in your recipes, you’ll need to know what to look out for when choosing your pumpkin. Here are few tips offered by The American Phytopathological Society.

• Check for moldy areas or soft spots and be sure to check the bottom.
• Healthy stems are green and can support the weight of the pumpkin, so be sure to test the stems.
• Only use orange pumpkins — yellow ones are not mature and will not have the right flavor.
• When storing the pumpkin, before cutting, keep it in a dry, shaded place.