Sudden Pumpkin Death

[TheWaterbug]

So my volunteer pumpkins were chugging along, all by themselves, and doing pretty well without any care or water.

Then on Sunday I decided to help them out a bit, so I watered them all. 9 out of 10 reacted like this:



That pumpkin looks like it grew a few inches the next day.

But this guy reacted like this:





I've never seen anything like. If I dig it out, am I going to see a big gopher tunnel underneath?

[jal_ut]

Cutworm? I think something clipped its roots.

[applestar]

How did you water? Is there any chance that the water was hot from sitting in the hose?

[mscratch]

sure looks like what a cutworm does for it to be in that shape that fast.

[soil]

Then on Sunday I decided to help them out a bit,

i think this was your downfall. looks like when a gopher clips a plants roots here.

[TheWaterbug]

I don't see any obvious cutworm damage above the soil. Tomorrow I'm going to dig it out and do an autopsy

If there's a gopher tunnel underneath I'm going to stomp up and down and use some harsh language. I may even shake my fist a few times.

I do have a few birds of prey in my area. Is there a way to "trap" a gopher above ground so that it can't dig back down, but so that a bird can swoop down and pick it up? Would that be considered cruel?

[TheWaterbug]

Well, I'm pretty sure it was a gopher. I went to look around the base of the plant, and it was gone. The whole base of the plant was gone:



I couldn't even tell where the roots had been.

Then I looked around the garden and saw a drooping sunflower, and its base was submerged in a hole



The bottom of the stem looked pretty grim:



A few days later I was about 10 yards away, and I heard a "crunching" sound. I turned around and watched some scrub brush being pulled backwards into the earth!

I think I'm going to amend my signature.