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Western NY

Some of you may have already seen presentations at SLC or a couple of the regional spring seminars. Here is a link to the site for the project where you can learn more or donate:

https://bigpumpkinlab.org/

4/8/2026 11:27:10 AM

Plymouth, MN

Cool. Can you share any details about what seeds are being targeted in the initial sequencing proposal? Sequencing is going to be the cheap part of the project. Good bioinformatics support to make sure the data's interpreted right is going to be tough, but hopefully the folks at UNH have that base covered.

4/9/2026 9:57:41 AM

Durham, NH

Hi CJB, yes, we have the bioinformatics covered at UNH. We are working with somewhat of a convenience sample, but we’re trying to target lineages from each decade, starting with seed stocks provided by the Dill family through the present. If we can get the pedigrees sufficiently cleaned up, we can prioritize seeds based on genetic age (pedigree depth) rather than calendar year, which would be ideal.

4/9/2026 11:22:57 AM

Colorado

will you guys be throwing any squash into the project-especially any of the recent big ones with a lot of "pumpkin" genetics?

4/9/2026 4:38:38 PM

Western NY

Yes, we have a significant amount of squash seeds to choose from thanks to Joe, Scott, and a few others.

4/9/2026 6:14:20 PM

Plymouth, MN

Awesome. Probably outside y'alls scope but an improved pedigree browser would be awesome.

4/10/2026 11:46:04 AM

Nova Scotia

Should be a very interesting and exciting genetic trial! Great work Andy, Chris and UNH. It's a good start with a variety of seed samples. I never thought of sending any old squash seeds as we have many of the top ones in their day.

Also off the subject, when I see Chris H, I immediately think of Chris Hebb. LOL A great grower back in the day both pumpkins and squash along with Ben Hebb, a Heavy Hitter back then.

4/10/2026 1:48:42 PM

Grittyville, WA

Would it throw things off if I sent a tomato seed? Joking! But yeah can you run a buttercup squash, jumbo banana, etc some mix of C. maxima to assess the overall diversity, or has the amount of diversity within the C. maxima family already been analyzed? Would donating to analyze other C. Maxima seeds help or not?

4/11/2026 12:40:53 AM

Durham, NH

Ketchup, there is a study that has broadly sampled genetic diversity in C. maxima: https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2022.1005158 . To summarize, we understand the differences between a buttercup or hubbard and AGs, but not the genetic differences driving gains WITHIN AGs. We are interested mostly in the latter, but I do plan on bringing in other published data to use as genetic diversity "measuring sticks".

[Last edit: 04/11/26 9:23:09 AM]

4/11/2026 9:21:43 AM

Durham, NH

Cjb, I agree! We will see, but if we end up cleaning and using the pedigrees for analysis then I would find some way to make the pedigrees publicly available along with any other data generated by the project. This could potentially take the form of a light-weight pedigree browser. The issue is always long-term updates and maintenance. There must be some sweet spot between the heavy curation used by the AGGC and the wiki format of pumpkinfanatic, but not sure what the solution looks like.

4/11/2026 9:29:38 AM