Fixing main stems?

Please help my poor pumpkin plant! It was doing pretty well but got pot-bound, so I went to move it somewhere else. As I did so the soil disintegrated around it out of my hands and before I knew it, the main stem somehow snapped, not fully in two but it's ripped a lot. My boyfriend had to wrap tape around it to even make it stand up. We've got the tape, put canes for support and I've buried most of the broken stem in the soil in the hope that it grows roots there like tomatoes do and ends up with a shorter main stem, and heals the rest (it was ripped in one place, bent in another slightly higher up). I don't even know if that works for pumpkins.

Is there anything else I can do to help it, or if the worst comes to the worst can I chop something and grow a new plant from it? The vines aren't long enough to reach the soil yet. The top half looks really healthy and had begun to grow buds, but if the bottom part doesn't heal it might die! :(

 

cling film and tape are good for these sort of emergencies, the combination makes the breakpoint repair more airtight. I`ve never had to repair a broken pumpkin stem but it works with chilli, toms, sunflowers and most others so i can`t see why it shouldn`t

 

Used sellotape on a couple of my welsh beans, they still growing

 

What a shame JW-Universe. Poor pumpkin and poor you.
I don't want to be a merchant of doom and gloom here but pumpkins (and all curcubits) are not like tomatoes and such that will root from anywhere on the stem.

Your initial reaction to put a splint on the stem was quite right.
Often that will save the day.
But I think the golden rule with the curcubit family is never transplant them deeper than they were before. They get neck rot and the stem just rots off - it won't root from there.

When did all this happen ? Was it just today ? If so you might be able to salvage the situation.
I would leave the splint you have made but clear it to above soil level. Don't try to make it stand up, they are sprawly plants, just let it sprawl on the ground above soil level.
I do hope you can save your pumpkin. Good luck and let's know how you get on.

 

Boo, aw, I had feared that :(

It happened a few days ago now, either Saturday or Sunday. It's still growing but you know the weird thing? Ever since it sprouted it grew upwards rather than outwards. It's certainly a pumpkin plant but it's got more of a head for heights than the other pumpkins I've seen. I wondered if it being root bound was a factor.

The splint-like cane was quite tall and we'd added a few more canes around it. It seems to have decided the only way is up; when I looked at it this morning its little vines were curling all over the canes as if trying to hold it up more, like a monkey swinging from its arms. I'm not sure where it expects to go if it survives because it can't go up forever, the canes are only so big!

That's another thing; if it does survive and grow fruit, will it snap under its own weight with a pumpkin on it, since it's growing up and not out? :cnfs:

 

Update: Naming no names, someone accidentally broke off the growing tip so I stuck ithe growing tip's vines in some watery soil to see if it would grow roots. It seems fine for a few days but now it's going floppy yet is still green.

The main plant itself is still alive. It has grown new growth in place of its growing tip, and now growth is speeding up all around the plant (but mainly on the top half) when it didn't before. Where it had a main stem and a leaf stem coming from it, it now has more leaf stems growing from that joint too, like tomatoes do if you don't prune them. However, its vines are going crispy from the tips, and some of its buds are going yellow then brown and drying up and falling off before they even turn into flowers and open. Has anyone any idea if these things are a bad omen that the plant is still dying, or whether it might be ok because it's still growing new leaves? I'm not sure why the vines are going crispy

 

Well, new leaves and buds continue to grow and I've had my first open flower today, hooray! The stem didn't heal totally up as I first imagined it would if it survived, but if it's happy enough to flower then it's certainly not ruined. The "pruning" didn't appear to do any harm either; if anything it encouraged new growth.:gnthb: