Pumpkin Genetics

I love pumpkins, I may have failed to mention that. Probably not.

I love genetics, especially horse color genetics, they fascinate me.

So when I inadvertently took up pumpkin breeding the color genetics behind them intrigued me greatly. Why do most of the volunteers turn out white? Is white really the dominant color gene of pumpkins? I realize that most of the vegetables we eat today do not naturally come in the colors we are used to, but pumpkins not naturally orange? It boggles the mind.

So says I who lovingly grows pumpkins in every color of the rainbow, and grey. Mostly grey.

For a couple of years I planted Lumina’s, a large and beautiful white pumpkin. Or they were the first year after that the same packet of seeds produced lop sided little blobs nothing like they were supposed to look and now most of my volunteers look like this:

The other thing that amazes me are the seeds I saved and planted from ONE gourd. One Gourd. Every plant that came up produced a different type of gourd. I planted quite a few of the seeds hoping to get at least one plant. It worked. I wasn’t expecting this though:

Apparently plant genetics are going to take as much careful study and attention as horses. If they had put genetics in this context durring school I may have become a geneticist. Probably not but I would have paid attention at the very least. I need to do some google-ing.