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Post by bellamella on Dec 25, 2014 12:42:10 GMT -5
Hello you guys and girls!
After a very, very wet summer (daily rain for 3 month) then one month of sun in october, we have encountered here a pumpkin problem from different growing locations I have never seen before, and I donĀ“t find anything in the net yet. The fruit produce a clear "resin" - a very thick, yellowish liquid in one or more spots. If you cut a seemingly intact fruit, you can see clear little spots forming undernath the peel. It is not where the fruit has touched the ground, but may well be on the top, or the upper facing sides. The fruit rot very early in the storage.
Has anybody ever seen this?
Thank you!
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Post by allyh on Jan 5, 2015 22:57:27 GMT -5
I know when I cut a butternut squash open and leave it for a few minutes beads of liquid form on the cut surface which then turn into a gel-like stuff. I read somewhere that it is due to their high pectin concentrations, but not sure if this is the reason or not.
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Post by philagardener on Jan 6, 2015 6:37:54 GMT -5
It sure coats my hands when I prep the fruit . . .
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Post by bellamella on Jan 6, 2015 11:12:52 GMT -5
No, no, it is untouched fruit, that produce the stuff. It is like the liquid drops that form when it is cut open, but darker and it becomes quickly stiff, like cherry resin. The fluid comes out of the unbruised rind, also the pumplin do not keep well. It is no mechanical damage. I assume, that it is some kind of fungus or bacteria that infects them and the liquid forms as self defense like when it is cut.
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Post by Al on Jan 6, 2015 11:14:07 GMT -5
I have never seen the slimy clear resin but I am a bit wary of pumpkins since the juice from one stripped the french polish off our dining table. This was a table made by my mother & finished with the traditional shellac based polish (shellac is made from beetle shells), normally this polish is stripped using methelated spirit (wood alcohol in the U.S I think). Could be slimy pumpkin juice is a natural paint stripper, would it make you drunk &/or blind, or perhaps you could run a car on it?
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Post by blackox on Jan 6, 2015 11:46:39 GMT -5
I'm going to say fras (fecal matter from bugs) created by little worms/grubs that have managed to get inside of your squash - or sap produced by the squash to heal wounds created by hungry squash bugs that decided to dig their dirty proboscises (straw-like mouths) inside of your squash.
I do get that resin-like stuff on my butternuts if I leave them on the vines for too long (wet weather does come around the time when I would prefer to harvest them). Those fruits to tend to spoil faster. Commercial, locally-grown butternuts here also tend to have this, which is one reason why I prefer to grow my own butternuts.
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Post by Al on Jan 6, 2015 15:55:04 GMT -5
Interesting to hear mention of fras. I splashed out on a 10 litre tub of this sold under the name Charge by a company called Ecothrive. They claim it is a soil enhancer & bio-stimulant. It is a by product of meal worm farms. Probably could have grown my own fras with some worms from a fishing tackle shop & an old squash. I mixed it in with compost before re-potting blueberries yesterday, it can also be a top dressing or mixed in with compost tea. I spoke with the guy who developed it, he said it could evoke a response from plants making them grow more vigorously because they think there are beetles about! Though that claim is not actually printed on the tub. We shall see.
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Post by bellamella on Jan 8, 2015 3:09:10 GMT -5
Thank you, to think about it.
Funny enough, we had a month of perfect, sunny fall wheather, sometimes with quite cold nights though. The pumpkins were harvested quite late this year, so it could be a climatical thing of low temperature in the nights - the fact that the tops of the fruit are hurt and not the bottoms touching the ground point in this direction. In some butternuts we had some up to 5cm larges patches of a lichen like, grey fungus growth in the skin on top of the fruit, that was news to me, but this condition did not lead to this weird "sap leaching". I do not think that it was little insects, as I found this spoilage forming under the skin in seemingly happy fruit, when peeling them, that were also cured for a month in the warmth. This is what makes me think of bacterial or fungal decay, but I found nothing about it. Or else, just the cold.
Pumpkin sap may strip wood of linseed based finishings - at least it has done so in my kitchen :-)
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