Buffalo Gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima)

[raymondo]

Nice project gilbert. A cross, a few years of grow outs to reselect perenniality, a back cross to GGP, etc. All you need is patience and space. Good luck with it.

[Deleted]

I learned of experimentation, with wild gourds, to help make local natives self-sufficient, about 2 generations ago (before the casinos became prevalent.) Coyotes apparently ate the results.

It grows within walking distance of my house. So, I have saved seeds.

I was concerned that they were so bitter-tasting, but heating seems to break down the saponins.

I am questioning whether Michurin's mentor grafting method could improve pollination.

Also, are curcubits strictly annual, under ideal conditions, or can clones be overwintered, without losing vigor.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Oh no!!!! I hadn't planned on working on a perennial squash, but yesterday I received my main seed swap shipment for the year and it contained 4 packages of Cucurbita foetidissima seeds.

As a first step I will plant them, and see if anything grows and produces fruit for me. For what it's worth I have planted a few seeds of that species the last two years, but they didn't even get to the first true leaf stage.

[flowerweaver]

Joseph Lofthouse ugh, that's a lot! At end of season I could venture harvesting some native seed of C. foetidissima if you want something truly adapted to drought.

[rhizowen]

I managed to cross ficifolia with foetidissima last year (2013) but I haven't opened the fruits yet. I may try the same cross this year.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Feb 14, 2014 14:52:01 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

Oh no!!!! I hadn't planned on working on a perennial squash, but yesterday I received my main seed swap shipment for the year and it contained 4 packages of Cucurbita foetidissima seeds.

Woo Hoo! Two plants germinated and have survived so far. The other squash have vines 8 feet long and are fruiting while the cucurbita foetidissima planted on the same day and treated to the same conditions are still small plants with only a few leaves. At least there is a plant!

[gilbert]

Any updates on this project? I haven't done anything with it yet, but I might try this year.

The one thing I want to figure out is; if it is growing near my other squash, and crosses with them, will they be bitter that year? Lots of sites seem to say so, but shouldn't fruit quality be determined by the mother plant?

If I grafted cultivated squash onto it, would the fruit quality suffer?

[gilbert]

On the one hand, I've heard dire warnings of buffalo gourd pollen producing toxic squash. On the other hand, I found this:

Cucurbita foetidissima HBK has been regarded as an aberrant species, showing no affinity toward any other Cucurbita species, based on phenetic relationships (4), pollinator species relationships (6), and compatibility relationships (3). Many attempts have been made to hybridize C. foetidissima with other Cucurbita species, but with only limited success. Fruit set was reported in crosses between C. foetidissima and several species, but only by using C. moschata (Duch. ex Lam.) Duch. ex Poir. as the pollen parent were partially developed embryos obtained (3,5). These embryos were cultured and produced vigorous, but sterile plants. Female fertility, however, was restored in the C. foetidissima x C. moschata hybrids by producing amphidiploids

Would see that it should be fairly safe, but the conflicting information is confusing.

[walt]

Buffalo gourds are quite common in my area.  
Years ago I looked into crosses of squash and buffalo gourds.  That is, I did a literature search.  I didn't try any crosses.
I found that U of Arizona had, (or used to have) amphiploids of buffalo gourds and a species of domestic squash.  But there hadn't been any segregation in the amphiploids.  So I had a lot of other things to do and I went to other things.
This summer, I had to step across a buffalo gourd to walk to or from my garden.
Once, while stepping across it I had a thought.  What if one used the CRISPR technology to delete the genes for bitterness from the amphiploid, and deleted the genes for wild traits other than genes for pereniality and winter-hardiness from the amphiploid.  One could have perenial squash.
Can't get it out of my head.

[gilbert]

I’ve been doing some more thinking about this breeding project. I started out by thinking what a boost annual squash could get grafted to a buffalo gourd. I’ve been discussing the pros and cons of this over at Permies. This might work, but I kept thinking about how nice it would be to have high quality fruit and a cold tolerant perennial root system in the same plant.

I did a bunch of research online. C. foetidissima is difficult to cross with domestic squash, though not impossible. In many cases, the crosses need chromosome doubling to make them work; I’d prefer to avoid messing around with poisons unless there is no other way.

Then I found this very interesting paper. It contains lots of information on Curbits,, including a few bits and pieces relevant to this project.

lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=ncrpis_pubs

After doing this research, I have though of two potential ways forward.

First, C. foetidissima can cross with C. ficifolia, which is perennial, though not cold tolerant, and has edible seeds, fruit, and leaves. However, in most cases, they say that the F1 lacks the ability to produce an F2. I haven’t been able to find out what the specific problem was (non-viable seed, incompatibility, fragile plants, etc.) I also haven’t been able to find out what the F1 was like. There is a slight chance that it would be a cold hardy perennial that did NOT smell like rotten meat! In that case, it would be much better for my rootstock project. But even further, there is a slight chance that it could have edible fruit, even if it didn’t produce viable seed! A perennial that can be propagated by cuttings doesn’t have to be stabilized genetically, not does it have to be fertile.

Failing all that, so long as it was a perennial, new attempts could be made every year to overcome the barriers and produce an F2. Every trick on the books could be tried. After all, how hard did the scientists try? As far as I know, they were interested in researching genetics, not producing a perennial squash.

So much for potential way one. Way two is as follows. The foetidissima group of Cucurbita includes three other perennial wild species, C. pedatifolia, C. x scabridifolia, and C. radicans, all native to Mexico. I can’t find much information on their edibility or other traits, nor can I find any seed sources yet. However, they are perennial, and do cross with C. foetidissima; in fact, C. x scabridifolia is such a hybrid. It is at least possible that these crosses could contain enough variability in fruit quality to enable selection. Maybe they don’t smell like rotten meat. And further, maybe some of these crosses would be easier to cross with other Cucurbita, either cultivated ones, or maybe a species like C. lundelliana that can be so crossed.

C. Moschata can be crossed with C. Foetidissima, with some difficulty. The perennial and annual squashes are in two different subgroups of Cucurbita, which are divergent genetically. I would assume that if a breeding project included only perennials at first, it would be easier to select for a desirable combination of traits.

What do you all think?

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

an interesting project. I find the buffalo gourds interesting. I've tried to plant them in the past, don't think any grew. Joseph might have input on using colchicine (not sure if i spelled that right) for chromosome doubling from his failed tetraploid watermelon project.

I say try going for the C. foetidissima x C. ficifolia route. I've grown C. ficifolia here once before with success. Gonna try again with the old seed i found for Nicolas, though i expect my seeds are too old or too damaged. Will share seed if i can get one to grow this next season.

You might also try the Michurin breeding techniques such as grafting C. foetidissima onto either C. moshata or C. ficifolia or both, and also doing the reciprocal grafts as well and then trying to cross the pollen between the grafted plants. There is also the mixed pollen technique. Might be worth mixing C. foetidissima, C. ficifolia, and C. moshata all together.

[gilbert]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the input! Why didn't the buffalo gourds grow for you? I thought they were indestructible. Did they just fail to sprout?

Did you have to cover or protect the C. Ficifolia somehow? Was it at all day-length sensitive? Did you start it early? I plan to put mine in a hoop house.

Does the grafting and then crossing technique really help much? On the one hand, I've heard it does; on the other hand, rootstocks seem to have a limited effect on fruit quality, which would seem to indicate otherwise. But it wouldn't hurt, and since part of my project is to test rootstock compatibility, I might try.

When doing the mixed pollen technique, does one have to sterilize the pollen from the parent plant? Or not? I know I read about it in Carol Deppe's book, but I've forgotten how it worked.

I think this could be a rather exciting project; I like squash plants. On the other hand, I really am accumulating projects for next year! Overwintering peas, overwintering sweet potatoes, dahlias, and canna lilies for tuber production, honey locusts, watermelons, cantaloupes, yellow summer squash with powdery mildew resistance, drought tolerant celery, wide crosses in tomatoes . . .

The first stage of this project should be doable with half a dozen plants in pots in my hoop house, so I should be able to get it in, even though it probably won't produce anything immediately useful. So far, no luck with finding seeds of the Mexican perennials.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

yeah, they just never sprouted. maybe i should have scarified the seed to break dormancy?

nope. i just planted the ficifolia like squash. From what Nicolas say's he thinks i got lucky and got a day-neutral strain. Too bad i didn't know that at the time. I think my seed is too old now. I had originally sent half of it to Holly in California. Never found out how it did for her. I'm willing to share seed again if i happen to luck out again with sprouting any and making them to seed stage again. They were long season, but grew. Perhaps i did plant them early i don't remember. it was a long time ago when i grew those hard hubbard sqush. Never again with those.

[gilbert]

That's interesting.

One can find such divergent information online. For instance, I found the following.

Researchers have wanted to breed species of Cucurbita to transfer features of one cultivar into another, but this is not possible by crossing the typical species. Researchers began using the unpalatable buffalo gourd as an intermediary, because it could be crossed with any of the common species. Consequently, genes from one cultivar can be brought into buffalo gourd and then potentially transferred to another species. Use of the buffalo gourd was also desirable in developing cucurbits that can live under conditions where water is scarce and temperatures are high, because this is a plant that comes from a dry, hot natural habitat.

I wish! 

[gilbert]

I got my buffalo Gourd seeds today! Malabar gourd seeds on the way. I'm going to try starting the buffalo gourd seeds very early, because I read somewhere that they generally don't flower the first year; I'd like to see if I can speed things up.