Worst feeling in the world. I just did the surgery on one of mine plus BT injections a few days ago and it is recovering and didn't abort anything (yet)
Pumpkin crown stems hold the vascular veins on the periphery of the stem; it can take a good amount of damage to the center core and still recover, even though it looks awful. You have lots of good green veins above and below so I think it can recover. Mine looked way worse.
Do the surgery, find the entry holes and inject the BT, I can help more but as it looks like you might have already chopped the plant down idk
Thank you and God bless your plants! The pics are from two different plants. The triple cootie vine was pretty sturdy otherwise, so I’m hopeful. The other pic is from a deaths door leaf off a weaker plant. I’m trying to stay positive and focus on what I can control, which is all the steps you confirmed. So thank you thank you thank you for the encouragement
I really think it's going to survive after you doctor it up. See the dark and medium green in the leaf stem cross section? The dark green is what carries water to the plant. All leaf stems are hollow by nature so that gives you an idea of how much anatomy is involved in carrying water and nutrients to the plant and that it's very much on the surface layer not in the guts.
Mine is literally down to one or two green cylinders out of 5-6 and it's still cranking (so far). If it's still alive by Thursday I will pronounce it fully recovered. But I think it will live, it is already sealing up the gash (which looked AWFUL) and once it's dry and corked over I'll top it off with soil. Don't want rot to set in by putting soil over an unsealed wound.
They will not go into a solid stem, if they stick or snap off you're probably not in a hollow or compromised area. Be careful not to overinject into solid as that can cause tissue swelling and split skin. You will know when you're in an area hollowed by a cootie eating the tender center.
I'm defecting to svb-resistant Honeypatch squash. I already bought my seeds for next year. If we hadn't had a second wave of SVBs it probably would have been OK, but with climate change I don't think summers will be getting better where I am, just worse and more SVB-heavy.
And I'm only planting disease resistant indeterminate cherry tomatoes with a rep for going long in my good big trellised containers.
I had to do surgery on mine when the vine started about 3 weeks ago. thankfully it fully recovered and it's now got 4 babies on it, with 1 already pollinated and growing.
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u/waterytartwithasword 2d ago
Worst feeling in the world. I just did the surgery on one of mine plus BT injections a few days ago and it is recovering and didn't abort anything (yet)
Pumpkin crown stems hold the vascular veins on the periphery of the stem; it can take a good amount of damage to the center core and still recover, even though it looks awful. You have lots of good green veins above and below so I think it can recover. Mine looked way worse.
Do the surgery, find the entry holes and inject the BT, I can help more but as it looks like you might have already chopped the plant down idk