Buffalo gourd as rootstock ?

Hi everyone !

This is my first post on Permies, and I will ask you to be indulgent because I am from France, then English language is not my mother tongue. Don't hesitate to make me repeat, rephrase what you don't understand
- I don't even know if I put my post in the right section :/

I live in South West of France, the climate is quite oceanic  ( zone 9a, 8b, it rarely snows, and summers are quite hot ). About the soil, all I can say it is sandy, deep,..    and it's my main problem.
Even if I watered my tomatoes, chilies peppers,..   every day, even if I heavily mulch the soil surface, fertilise a bit, but it doesn't help so much.

Near my home I met someone who told me that she always plant grafted tomatoes and get very good results..    I was a bit sceptical about grafted tomatoes, believing improvement was not really visible, noticeable. However, weeks after weeks, I saw her tomatoes plants growing like crazy, forming a king of hedge ( there were only two plants, but we could believe they were five ) plenty of tomatoes ( Andean tomatoes variety ). I was shocked. Even more shocked when I look the tomatoes plants that I gave her ( several heirlooms varieties, among them, cherry tomatoes which normally are easier to grow ), planted next to the grafted ones, but they were small, with 2 or no fruit, ..    

I told to myself : I need to find rootstock for anything I want to grow now.
For tomatoes, problem is solved. But I am still looking for chilies peppers rootstock, idem for watermelon, melon,..

I have seen previous post, where someone told about using Buffalo Gourd as rootstock, but I hadn't heard the result of this experience.

Today, I want to try by myself and see what happens then. Then make a report to close or enlarge the possibility of using this species as rootstock for edible Cucurbitacea.

So, if anyone have experience with Buffalo gourd, it would be great to ear her. And if someone has seeds to share ( of Cucurbita foetidissima or an other species - I have heard about others native species that could fit with this use ) I would be very happy to try it.

And since, I am looking for others rootstocks for others vegetables, don't hesitate to share your personals experiences to guide me. You can also imagine, extrapolate what could it be used to graft and improve drought, pest resistance, yields,..  

Thanks for reading me !

Vincent

This may be the thread where you read about using buffalo gourd as a rootstock.  This is an interesting concept and I am intrigued to find out how his experiment turned out.

https://permies.com/t/73612/Buffalo-Gourd-rootstock-squash-melons

A word of caution, buffalo gourd has a huge root.

I would have thought you or someone else, would had been curious enough to give a try with this rootstock.
Is it commonly available in your area ?
The seeds of Buffalo Gourd are edible once roasted, but what about the flesh ? Bitter but edible like a Momordica or bitter and really toxic ( even when fully ripe )

At our other property that we bought in 2009 it grows readily.

there was one plant that we keep fighting that was just as you step out of the back door.  Very inconvenient.  

I don't remember what happened to it.  We started getting a hole where it used to be that we had to keep filling up with dirt.  Evidently the root was about the size of a small water melon.

The plant makes round green fruit about 3" across with very little flesh and lots of seeds.

To me with a root that big it would take up too much space in the garden.

If you do decide to try an experiment, let us know how it turns out.

I heard people grafting cucumber to pumpkin at the seedling stage. The latter has stronger roots so the cucumber will be more drought tolerant.