Almost there. Generally they start being harvested around the 2nd week of September.
Just eyeballing it, those have another 3 weeks at least. The prizewinner next to the of the road tend to color up early. They contain a gene called precocious yellow. The immature fruit are yellow that turn to reddish orange as they mature. Since they don’t have to wait for the chlorophyll degradation in a normal green immature fruit the pigments show up when the fruit is still immature.
I spent most of a decade sharing an office with the most prolific commercial pumpkin breeder (he had a peduncle collection in his desk).
I then was his product manager and got to travel all over world introducing and naming new varieties. The most common and identifiable one I introduced for him was the medium sized one with the dark green warts (Warty Goblin). However about 70% of the varieties at the grocery store and patch are ones I named.
He was a very talented breeder and I got to let my inner kid free. I did get push back from people who didn’t understand the market for my official reason for chosing a variety. Apparently writing “because it’s cool” wasn’t good enough for them.
Almost there. Generally they start being harvested around the 2nd week of September.
Just eyeballing it, those have another 3 weeks at least. The prizewinner next to the of the road tend to color up early. They contain a gene called precocious yellow. The immature fruit are yellow that turn to reddish orange as they mature. Since they don’t have to wait for the chlorophyll degradation in a normal green immature fruit the pigments show up when the fruit is still immature.
Oh wow how do you know so much about pumpkins
Hazard of a previous job.
I spent most of a decade sharing an office with the most prolific commercial pumpkin breeder (he had a peduncle collection in his desk).
I then was his product manager and got to travel all over world introducing and naming new varieties. The most common and identifiable one I introduced for him was the medium sized one with the dark green warts (Warty Goblin). However about 70% of the varieties at the grocery store and patch are ones I named.
https://us.stokeseeds.com/hybridpumpkin-wartygoblin-0780267t.html
He was a very talented breeder and I got to let my inner kid free. I did get push back from people who didn’t understand the market for my official reason for chosing a variety. Apparently writing “because it’s cool” wasn’t good enough for them.