Growing Gourds. Squash borers? X-pollination?

I want to try growing some gourds this year (birdhouse, louffa, maybe others).

I had bad squash borer infestations last year on my summer squash. Will they also attack gourd vines?

Also, if I plant both gourds & squash (trying summer squash again, also butternut & delicata), will they cross pollinate and produce really odd fruits?

Any other tips on gourds, please share.

Thanks for sharing your experience/expertise!

critter...you shouldn't have too much trouble with borers on your gourds. You may have trouble with a few squash bugs but that will be minimal.

As for crossing, you will not see "really odd fruit" this year...only if you save seed from this year and grow those out next year is when you MIGHT see the odd ones. (Some "squash" will cross with some types of "gourd" but it'll depend on their species.)

Thanks, 'shoe! Other than a couple of hills I may try to cover & hand-pollinate, I'm trying to stick with borer-resistant (or at least borer-tolerant) varieties this year.

I'll keep the potential crossing issues in mind. If I get any seeds to save, I'll try them myself next year, but I won't offer them on my trade list. I thought of this because my mom grew pumpkins and yellow summer squash in the same garden patch one year, and we got a couple of very warty pumpkins!

Must have been something else that caused the warty pumpkins....cross pollination the year before most likely. Could have been a virus too...some of them produce warts. Lots of pumpkins will cross with yellow squash, but you won't see any evidence of it until the seeds are planted that you harvested the year before. It takes a full generation for cross pollination to show up...you'll never know till a full season later.

A good book to have is Seed To Seed by Susanne Ashworth. It explains how each vegetable variety sets fruit and how pollination and cross pollination occurs. Some pollen is wind borne...some is insect borne. She also tells what varieties can be grown together with no chance of cross pollination. Waltham Butternuts will not cross with Yellow squash, for example.

It's a very good book that explains things in language that folks like us can understand. Well written , without a lot of technical words, and in terms that the average gardener can relate to.

Thanks for the recommendation, Melody! I definitely want to improve my understanding of how to save seeds that will remain true to name. I figure when you trade seeds with other home gardeners, there's going to be some risk of cross-pollination, but I want to reduce that risk as much as I can with the seeds I'm sending out.

You mentioned Butternuts not crossing with squash. I'm wondering if plant species are basically defined like animal species, as being different populations that will not reproduce, or at least will not produce fertile offspring..... I wish more seed catalogs would list latin names and not just cultivars, keeping the species straight would be easier. I will look for that book!

With Mom's pumpkins, I guess it wasn't cross-pollination then, because the seeds were from Burpees. I'll have to tell her that her pumpkins had a virus.....

I have had lots of trouble with the vine borer in the ornamental gourds. They don't seem to bother the hardshell gourds. I am trying an experment on the ornamentals and vine borers, will let you know in a couple of weeks the results

Deb, by "hardshell gourds" do you mean birdhouse gourds, dipper gourds, etc?

I'm so far behind, I don't know if I'll manage to get those gourd hills in this year or not, but at least everything I have managed to plant is doing pretty well.

BTW, Melody, I ordered my copy of _Seed to Seed_ in March.... what a great book! Thanks for the recommendation!

There are several species of gourds. Those commonly called hardshell (Birdhouse, dipper, calabash, penguin, bottle etc) are Lagenaria siceraria and pretty much immune to squash borers. That also appears to be true for the Luffa types (Luffa cylindrica and Luffa acutangula). There is another whole set of cultivars sold as gourds which are squash (Cucurbita pepo ) and very susceptible to borers. The butternut family of squash (Cucurbita moschata) are seldom bothered by borers. Cultivars can be readily identified in Plantfiles.

Thanks, FarmerDill! You've come to my rescue again! I guess I'd just never heard the term "hardshell," but it should've been intuitively obvious.

It may help to know that Luffa gourds will not cross with any of your squash. They are a different family. Somewhere I typed all this out once, will add a link if I find it...

here it is cut and pasted from another thread...

"To add to Bernie's info about the squash crossing, you can grow and save seed from 4 different squash (just don't do pumpkins LOL) One pepo, one moschata, one each of the other two kind that don't come to mind (help me here Bernie). If you aren't saving seed, then grow as much as you like. I suggest growing your squash all together in one bed, with radishes (let go to seed) and nasturtiums to repel squash bugs. However, I believe that growing cucumbers near zucchini can result ina bad tasting zuke. I will double check that, but i know it is something with Zucchinis, and I had to opt out of zuccinis this year (anyone want my seeds?)"

My resource for that was The New Seed Savers Handbook. I have referred to that many times when it comes to preventing crosses for seed-saving. And that is where I read that Luffas won't cross. Later, of course, I noticed from the Latin names that, like Shoe said, they aren't even in the same family. The reason I said what I did about pumpkins, is that MOST are pepo, which would cross with your summer squash. I believe the other two families are Maxima, which some pumpkins are, and many winter squash too. Rats, still can't recall the fourth family name. Maybe another time...

Good luck with your garden :-)


This message was edited Jun 23, 2005 12:40 AM

maxima--- hubbards, turbans, Atlantic Giant, etc...
mixta--- crooknecks, cushaws, etc...
moschata--- Butternuts, etc...
pepo--- acorn, delicata, pumpkins, zucchinis, spaghetti squash., etc..

LD

thanks Larry, knew someone would come through :-)

Just for the record. Only the Cushaw types are mixta. Crooknecks straightnecks, scallops, zuchinni, many pumpkins and ornamental gourds are pepo. They will cross tho.

Thanks, Farmerdill. I stand corrected.
LD

FD, so you mean the pepo willl cross with the mixta?

Yes mam: The mixta probably stands for mixed breed.

Boy, I will remember that!

the vine borer won, some plants trying to survive but I dont think they will get any bigger or produce. Back to the drawing board. I wanted egg gourds and spoon the borers really did a job on these. I have a couple of spinners gourds not affected but do not know if they will make to maturity.