Have you been growing them in the same area each year?
Your soil may be depleted of some necessary nutrients.
What have you done the same, or different each year?
Are buying fresh seed from a reputable source, or using seed from a previous crop, or seed from another grower?

Lets see if we can figure this out....

Jan

Thanks for your intrest.

I am growing them in the same spot, as previous years. I grow about 100 plants on 10 large tripod trellises, same as previous years. I planted Apache Dippers, XLH Dippers, LH Dippers, Indonesian Bottles, Martin House.

I was able to get only 34 usable gourds from all this. I had to discard 80 % of my crop because the shells were so paper thin that I could push my finger right thru the body with no effort.

This year I did not clip off the male vines when they reached 10 feet, as I had done in previous years. I just let the male vines go where they wanted on my trellises, and like wise the female vines.

I am using all purchased seed from the same source as previous years, Rocky Ford Gourds in Ohio.

I have not used any soil nutrients. I do collect bags of leaves from area yards and place a two foot layer in my gourd area as mulch and weed preventer, same as previous years.

If you can give me any advice based on the above info, I would sure appreciate it.

I have read in my gourd growing book that one needs to add potassium to your soil after the gourds start growing on the vine. I did this last year with my bushel gourds. I have just now started working with these gourds and the shells on some are about 1/2 inch thick. They are too thick for my mini jig saw to cut easily. I can tell by the weight of most of my bushel gourds that they are all thick.

I seen a gourd at the Ohio gourd show that was almost one inch thick. the grower told me the trick was no nitrogen after the vine starts growing. my gourds came out thicker this year in the same garden after four years growing, with the use of manure from a local dairy, we are also in central AR.