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Anamosa, IA BPIowegian@aol.com

Do long gourds root out from the vine like pumpkins and melons? If so , would it be an advantage to have the vine run along the ground for a distance to get a better root system before going up the trellis?

12/23/2008 9:29:17 AM

Ohio

The main root systems can travel a long way. They can go 30 feet or more under ground if they have the room to spread.

As far as letting the vine grow more root systems. It can be done. I've done it in the past and it does work. Kind of like what pumkins do at the leaf node.
The vines are sensitive to rotting. Just make sure when you bury the leaf nodes they can draine very well.

A good way to experiment with this the first year is just train the first few secondaries to grow along the ground and not up your trellis. Bury the secondaries and see how they do for you. Should they not take, you only lose a few secondaries and not the main vine.

12/23/2008 10:43:03 AM

St Matthews, SC

Yea those vines root rather easy along the vine, in my experience, they seemed to be growing root nodes up the main especially close to the ground . Ive cut back branches in the summer just to prune the vines and for kicks stuck them in pots and they rooted out really fast. I also was growing birdhouse gourds and the main about 10 feet out and then hung low enough to make contact with the ground and had a strong root system on it, i happened to come across that later on in the season as things started dying back. Even though its a bottle gourd its still very closely related. Ive noticed that it almost has those cling like roots onto the wood trellis such as those of english ivy, poison ivy and other vines. Maybe thats due to the high humidity in the summer here who knows.

Thats not a bad idea to try getting a bigger root system for the plant, it deffinately couldnt hurt. Urena had that huge long 26 foot root or more on his plant that grew the 127.5, that sure is alot of root for that gourd.

1/10/2009 8:39:35 PM