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market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] Squash hybrids vs. open pollinated

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  • From: "Rob Johnston" <rjohnston AT johnnyseeds.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] Squash hybrids vs. open pollinated
  • Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 18:28:36 -0500

> Recently, one of our relatives gave us some squash seeds. They had
extracted
> them from a Buttercup squash that they felt was the best tasting they had
> ever had. She wanted us to plant the seeds for next year to see what kind
of
> result we would get.

> We normally grow Acorn and Butternut, but not Buttercup, but
> maybe we will give it a try this spring.
>
> Are many or most squash that are grown generally an F1 hybrid?
>
> Do any of you folks grow open pollinated cultivars and find them to be
> better?

Rick,
If you and your close neighbors are not planning to grow any C.maxima
squashes, then why not give it a try?
There are no popular Buttercup hybrids, but it is common to market
kabocha
type squash in the US as Buttercup, and the kabochas are nearly all hybrids.
If you can determine that it looked like a Buttercup, with the grey "button"
on the blossom end, they you're okay.
Chances are F to G that the fruit came from a sizable field of
Buttercup
squash, and, thus, had other Buttercup squashes as pollen donors (fathers.)
If there was/is hereditary basis for the good taste, even if one or more of
the pollen sources was poor quality, you will still have genes for good
quality in the progeny.
Your job as "farmer-plant breeder" is to increase the frequency of
"good
eating quality" genes. You can do that slowly but surely by saving seeds
(for the next generation) only from fruits with excellent taste. How long
it would take you to have a strain of Buttercup with a substantial portion
of the fruits with the superior quality depends on the number of genes that
are critical contributors to the quality -- the more genes, i.e. the more
complicated the inheritance, the longer it will take. (You could progress
twice as fast by also screening for the eating quality of the pollen donor,
but that would require a spacious nursery field layout and hand pollination,
not a practical option for most busy farmers.)
Also, you would need to keep your Buttercup crop out of range of any
other
C.maxima squash/pumpkin variety, either on your farm or a neighbors.
The worst that can happen is that your source fruit was crossed with
another variety of squash. You would notice this in your first crop, and
you could then abandon the project.
Assuming the best, and your seeds produce only Buttercup squash, then
you
have 2 time consuming tasks each year. 1) Select a few dozen nice looking
(to you) squash, number them, and cook test them. You can do this by baking
a small piece of each, about 40 to a baking sheet. 2) Extract and dry the
seeds of the best tasting ones. (To reduce detrimental inbreeding, I would
recommend saving seeds of at least a dozen fruits.) Bulk the seeds for next
year's planting.
Of course, you can market the fruits that you didn't take for cook
testing.

Rob Johnston
Johnny's Selected Seeds
Winslow, Maine USA





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