Hi, guys! I’ve volunteered to be the seed steward for ficifolia (fig leaf gourd) this year!
I’d like to gauge how many people have seeds to contribute. Please post here if you do.
If there are enough people growing it, we may be able to do more than one grex, based on different traits. Has anyone been selecting their population for anything special?
I have grown fig-leaved gourd for more than a decade.
I perceive it, without any science or DNA analysis, to be highly inbred. The pictures I see of fruits all look the same. Same size. Same shape. Same color. Same bland flavor and colorless flesh. The leaves all look the same. The vines all look the same.
I would love a day-neutral variety, that could flower and set seed during the long-days of summer instead of the short-days of fall when my fields are already freezing.
I’ve read they’re a perennial in zones 9 and above, which may fit with them being highly inbred.
If they are highly inbred, that represents both a challenge and an opportunity. If we can find some wild accessions of the species, there may be a lot of untapped potential for breeding there. Anyone have some ideas where we may look for some?
I checked GRIN. They don’t list a single accession of Cucurbita ficifolia as available for distribution.
Seems like fig-leaved melon could benefit from someone loving on it.
Might be worthwhile approaching GRIN, saying that we are a plant breeding network, interested in working on minor species that don’t attract attention from mega-ag, and could we please, please get seeds.
Low genetic diversity, and anti-glycemic effect. Three phenotypes exist: mottled green rind with black seeds (the most common), white rind with black seeds, white rind with white seeds.
Hmm, sounds like the other phenotypes would be worth collecting. You’re right that ARS-GRIN doesn’t have anything. Where would be a good place to find both the white-seeded ones?
I sent a message to GRIN today, so see if we can open a dialog about this species.
That’s an awesome e-mail! Thank you, Joseph! I hope it bears fruit! 
Fantastic with the Grin communication! 
I want to grow this (and probably will this season through the grab bag) but am honestly pretty intimidated. 100 fruits for a single plant? Can that be accurate? Even at a quarter of that I’m not sure how to make use of it as non-market gardners with other melons planned
Wow! A hundred doesn’t sound like it can be accurate! One website I checked said four to five fruits per plant, which sounds more like what I’d expect. Maybe a hundred fruits is what you can expect in the tropics, where this species is a perennial that can live for years and produce fruits year-round?
How many fruits do you tend to expect per plant, Joseph?
I expect in the neighborhood of 4-5 fruits per plant. Depends on the season. If frost comes late, then they are more productive.
I planted mine in two locations: Field w/average summer high of 58F, and was surprised to get gourds that matured, 1-2 per plant or less. Not very aggressive at all, behaved like a moschata. In a greenhouse, where they climbed up and over and pulled everything in sight, it was very cool. Not sure how many, could have been 4-5.
GRIN sent this to me:
I laughed out loud at your description of how they behaved in your greenhouse! Sounds like a cucurbit that may want to be planted next to my metal fence! It’s such a lovely strong potential trellis; I want to have a big vining plant growing up it to enjoy it. 
Thank you for getting in contact with GRIN! With 90 accessions, there may be some great genetic diversity in there to work with.
It sounds like they could use some people who are willing to grow out an accession in isolation and return seeds to them.
I’d be willing to do that. Any other volunteers?
What kinds of traits are we, as a community, most interested in?
If I’m choosing, I think the traits that would be most interesting are sweeter and more flavorful fruit, quickness to fruit, and drought tolerance. Those are traits that seem useful for anyone growing the species.
I love snacking on the seeds (not truly hull-less, but hulls are very digestible). In Oaxaca the black seeds were available for sale in all the markets.
However, they are time consuming to remove! Because unlike other squash, there wasn’t a seed cavity, they were all over the flesh, so removing them was time-consuming and messy. I’d love to see more seeds, moving towards a seed cavity like pumpkins or maximas, if such a thing is possible. Although after 8000ish years of domestication I assume people eating them would have already done that Doing this would also have an advantage for people who like eating the flesh, because it would stay more intact when removing the seeds.
Also we need to recruit people with generations of a relationship with Chilacayota, and I may be in a good geographic location to do that, so I’ll work on it. @laurenm has been amazing at doing this in her local community of Napa, so there are a lot more seeds being grown out in California this year. And this was a photo from last weekend, this giant beauty was grown by Rebecca Newburn and given to an admirer last week. It would be fantastic to have enough seeds to freely re-matriate them to the Mexican and Central American diaspora who don’t have easy access to the seeds
I just cut open one that was gifted to me by somebody locally, and it had a soft shell! More like a melon. The Lofthouse ficicolia were all very hard to cut open, so I might have some diversity to contribute now.
I volunteer to grow one accession. I’ll put it in the greenhouse, to give it some extra time in the fall.
The most valuable trait to me would be day-neutral, so that it flowers during the long-days of summer instead of in very late fall.
I noticed that the GRIN database has few records regarding this species. Mostly just a photo of the seeds. Creating a report with photos of the plants and fruits would be valuable. Posting into this thread would be lovely.
That’s great! I’m having trouble finding a source for 100 now and glad to hear it’s nowhere near accurate.
I have space and am looking forward to grow the seed in the grab bag. Do we have a notion of (or did I overlook) how many plants and what isolation distance would be needed to grow one of the GRIN accessions?
Isolation distance is probably unimportant unless you’re planning to grow two populations yourself, because the likelihood of your neighbors growing it is very low. I can ask.
I should definitely ask how many plants they want grown of each accession.
