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Post by Alan on Jan 27, 2010 20:54:45 GMT -5
Over the past couple years I've been slowly taking some of the lesser known Curtis Showell varieties out of Gatersleben. I have also scoured the GRIN system where there is very little and according to sources SSE doesn't even have but about 1/4 of Curti's entire collection which is a sad loss.
Last year I spoke with Ampetu of Sourcepoint seeds who was in contact with Curtis's family and who was requesting his collection, I should call him and see what he got.
I've had a lot of luck finding the winter squash accessions and some watermelons, but recently I hit the jackpot and I am so thankful.
Dr. Kapuler and I speak of many plant breeders back and forth and Curtis comes up often, when Kapuler offered to send me some of Curti's watermelon varieties I was enthralled.
Little did I know he was sending me close to 100 accessions of seed.....FANTASTIC!
Some of them were still packaged in the old ciggarette cellophane that cutrtis was fond of, all of them had handwritten names, some were unfinished segregating hybrids, some were packaged in Peace Seeds packages from the early 90's one even had the hand addressed envelope from Curtis to Alan!
All in all very cool, many of these and the squash I have found will be re-introduced in coming years via my new seed company. This belongs to everybody and I hope you all will appreciate it in the future.
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Post by bunkie on Jan 27, 2010 21:25:20 GMT -5
wow alan, big smile on my face here for you! good for alan and all the sharing! much appreciated here...
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Post by castanea on Jan 27, 2010 22:38:11 GMT -5
Exceptionally cool !
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Post by Penny on Jan 28, 2010 10:32:46 GMT -5
Thats awsome Alan......nice treat in the mail.
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Post by Dan on Jan 28, 2010 11:40:31 GMT -5
That is fantastic news! Can't wait to hear about you growing them out.
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Post by jonnyyuma on Jan 28, 2010 19:10:25 GMT -5
I am pretty jealous. Wish you luck getting the older stuff to germinate. Jonny
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Post by galina on Mar 13, 2010 4:48:20 GMT -5
Alan
I have been drooling over the picture of Curtis Showell's 'Silverbell' c maxima squash for years! Thank you for growing these varieties out. Melons are a bit tricky here because of our very cool summer weather, but this is very exciting and I wish you good luck with keeping both squash and melon cultivars in circulation. Thank you for your efforts.
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Post by Alan on Mar 21, 2010 20:41:23 GMT -5
Alan I have been drooling over the picture of Curtis Showell's 'Silverbell' c maxima squash for years! Thank you for growing these varieties out. Melons are a bit tricky here because of our very cool summer weather, but this is very exciting and I wish you good luck with keeping both squash and melon cultivars in circulation. Thank you for your efforts. Thanks Galina, Silverbell is in my collection as well, I picked it out of Gatersleben I believe and it is on the growout list this year along with several others. Though I have forgotten his name, Ampetu I believe, from Sourcepoint seeds was in contact with Curti's mother about obtaining his entire collection, hopefully at some point he will be another great source for Curtis's fantastic cucurbit collection.
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Post by galina on Mar 29, 2010 9:43:31 GMT -5
That all sounds so positive. Hope all works out. Two people and hopefully more soon who are actively maintaining these varieties must surely be better than them lingering in frozen seedbank storage or worse not being stored at all and perishing.
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Post by Alan on Mar 31, 2010 21:48:01 GMT -5
Exactly Galina! It will never cease to perturb me the way that Curtis Showell was/is treated by the SSE or that some folks like Carolyn Male will continue to say that the lines still in the gene banks are "useless breeding lines". If it weren't for a handful of us a lot of these treasures would be long gone!
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Post by wildseed57 on Apr 15, 2010 13:46:11 GMT -5
Hi Alan, it sounds like you will be having a lot of fun growing them out, I will keep my eye on your list and will be buying some of your seeds as you add them in. I love watermelons so I will be watching to see what you have, I was hoping to get one called Royal Golden this year for my grand daughter so that she could tell when its ripe, she wants her own watermelon garden this year, but I haven't found it , but I do have some OrangeGlo that I will start for her, its a old orange fleshed variety that is very sweet. I can't wait till you start adding yor watermelon and squash to your selling list. I too think is very sad to let seeds just sit in cold storage never to se the light of day. There is so many varieties of vegetable and fruit out there that are being kept in cold storage, that need to be grow out and distrebuted to the public. George
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Post by Alan on Apr 24, 2010 16:15:19 GMT -5
Hi Alan, it sounds like you will be having a lot of fun growing them out, I will keep my eye on your list and will be buying some of your seeds as you add them in. I love watermelons so I will be watching to see what you have, I was hoping to get one called Royal Golden this year for my grand daughter so that she could tell when its ripe, she wants her own watermelon garden this year, but I haven't found it , but I do have some OrangeGlo that I will start for her, its a old orange fleshed variety that is very sweet. I can't wait till you start adding yor watermelon and squash to your selling list. I too think is very sad to let seeds just sit in cold storage never to se the light of day. There is so many varieties of vegetable and fruit out there that are being kept in cold storage, that need to be grow out and distrebuted to the public. George Thanks for the kind words my friend. I don't currently have Royal Golden but do have a genepool with royal golden genes floating around, Ken Ettlinger of Long Island Seed has been dehybridizing and gold rinded hybrid for a couple years and I'm taking it under my wing this year. Glad to see people looking forward to the reintroduction of some of these old melons and squash. I've got to set down and organize what's getting grown this season tonight so it can go in the ground next week.
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