In 2008, a group of archaeologists found a clay pot on the Menominee Indian Reservation, in Wisconsin, United States. Some seeds were found inside it, which were then brought to a group of students in order to cultivate them.
The seeds in question were about 850 years old and were given in 2014 to a select group of farmers of the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Indian Reservation, descendants of those who lived where the seeds were found.
The planting and seed germination process were carried out in totally natural conditions and resulted in the germination of a pumpkin species which had been extinct for several hundred years. The creeping stems of the plant have reached lengths of up to seven metres. The first harvest has yielded a dozen pumpkins of an elongated type. The biggest was nearly a metre long and weighted 8 kilos.
Thanks to this new production, the so-called Gete-okosomin pumpkin, a tribal anishinaabe word which means something like "very old pumpkin," the vegetable will soon be on the market.
Source: capital.cl
