Seed and Oil Pumpkin: A Potential Specialty Crop for the Southeast

Pumpkin seeds are a popular snack in many parts of the world and provide an important source of vegetable oil, particularly in Eastern Europe. Although currently of minor value, the use of pumpkin in the snacking and vegetable oil industry is expected to increase in the United States as the market for healthy foods and vegetable oil increases. The goal of the current study was to determine the genotypic and phenotypic (nutrition) diversity among 35 pumpkin cultivars, and horticultural performance of two "naked" seed pumpkin ('Beppo' and 'Naked Bear') cultivars in South Florida. Variation was observed in seed oil (29.33 to 48.41%) and seed protein (19.48% to 31.35%). Linoleic acid (x = 51.19%) was the major fatty acid in the seed, followed by oleic (x = 30.77%), palmitic (x = 9.84%), and stearic (x = 5.63%) acids. Genetic diversity among the pumpkin accessions using 39 SSR markers revealed a total of 102 alleles averaging 3.92 alleles per loci. The weighted neighbor joining dendrogram grouped the genotypes into three major clusters. Cluster I consisted primarily of hulled seed accessions of low oil but high protein that are grown for edible flesh. On the other hand, clusters II and III consisted primarily of accessions with reduced hulls that had high oil, but low protein. 'Beppo' cultivar exhibited a vining habit with a low fruit yield (1.3 fruits/plant) and moderate seed yield/fruit (313.5). On the other hand, 'Naked Bear' had short vines with a higher fruit yield (2.3 fruits/plant) and moderate seed yield/fruit (274.1). Collectively, these data suggest wide phenotypic and genotypic variation within C. pepo and provides information on horticultural performance of seed-oil pumpkins in South Florida.