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Post by michaeljohnson on Apr 23, 2010 0:32:15 GMT -5
I ask this question -because I harvested a squash when it was showing signs of ripening last year and left it for a week or two before cutting it open, then saved the seeds from it, but many of the seeds were empty=just shells of the seed, how long do you have to leave them for the shells to fill up and look plump,
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Post by jonnyyuma on Apr 23, 2010 21:14:11 GMT -5
If the seeds were empty than you have more problems than immaturity. I have never produced squash seed, but when we get "floaters" in melon and watermelon it is due to poor pollination. On the other hand the variety could have a lot of parth tendencies. Jonny
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Post by Alan on Apr 24, 2010 16:21:49 GMT -5
Johnny is correct about the pollination issues.
Other than that though, to "fatten up" cucurbit seed I generally let them set for at least a week for cucumbers and maybe a month or even more for squash, the viability rate goes way up and the seed looks much much healthier.
You gotta be careful where you set them though, if they get to warm and it gets humid they will sprout inside of the fruit itself. Some varieties make a particularly bad habbit of doing so, Dickenson squash is particulary bad about this.
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Post by Hristo on Apr 24, 2010 16:56:21 GMT -5
Most squash seeds can germinate even if harvested 30-40 days after the pollination. Of course they are not as vigorous as the well ripe ones, but still most of them can germinate. So, yes, your problem was the pollination, not the harvest time.
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Post by galina on Apr 26, 2010 9:08:44 GMT -5
Talking as a short and very cool season seed saver, it depends how late in the season squash was harvested. If there is enough time for squash to ripen on the vine (not just get to size, but really mature on the vine), then the seeds will not need any more than nominal after-harvest ripening time. But if squash had to be taken off the vine that did not have maturing time, then a few weeks/months of post harvest storage will make up for this to a degree.
As others have said, empty seeds are a pollination problem. In Britain I get this regularly, although strangely fruit with flat seeds store just as well as fruit with properly full seeds. So many times I had lovely looking squash, handpollinated, and found out months later on cutting open that not a single seed was fat and viable. C maxima pollinate relatively easily in our cold summer conditions, but produce smaller seeds in a cold summer. C moschata are really difficult to get good seeds from and I grow them in a greenhouse for seedsaving. Although c pepo are fairly cold hardy to grow, they often also need the warmth of the greenhouse here for viable pollen and seed production. Seed count is very dependent on the right (in our case warm) weather.
As most of the correspondents here have warmer summers than in Britain, this will not be so interesting, but since you are Notts based and I am Northants based (and living on a ridge), I thought I commiserate and explain in a bit more detail. Summers like 2007 and 08 were dire for squash seed saving, 09 was only slightly better. We need a decent summer. In 2003 it was very easy to save squash seeds and get loads in every fruit. 03 was our last decent summer.
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Post by roper2010 on May 6, 2010 20:38:06 GMT -5
Last summer I grew Tromboncino squash. We have a long growing season here, so I let some mature to harvest seeds. I waited until they were the color of butternut squash(peachy color). Then kept them in the house for another 3 weeks before harvesting seeds. The seeds were nice and plump and looked perfect. I let them dry inside the house, and when fully dry, they looked so super flat. I peeled some and they did have a seed inside. When I received the original seeds in a trade, they were not flat like mine. Well someone in another forum asked me for some seeds. I send him quite a bit, and told him I didn't know if they were any good. He planted 10 seeds and 6 germinated. I was surprised some germinated. Is there a special way to dry them? I expected mine to come out like the commercial seeds.
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Post by michaeljohnson on May 7, 2010 23:52:54 GMT -5
I cant quite understand this pollination thing as regards to squashes and pumpkins, as I always thought that the little bump at the back of each female flower did not start to swell until it had been properly pollinated, if no pollination took place then the female flower would simply wither and drop off,
Do I take it then that the squash or pumpkin can still grow and swell with only minor pollination-and yet it still produces seeds inside of it even if flat rather than fat, one would think that it would not produce seed shells at all for all those dud ones and only produce fat germinating types,
The funny thing about it all though is that the squash reached full size, and eventually turned yellowish tinge on the plant before cutting it for storage-giving all the indications of a full and ripe fruit.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 8, 2010 0:31:28 GMT -5
I cant quite understand this pollination thing as regards to squashes and pumpkins, as I always thought that the little bump at the back of each female flower did not start to swell until it had been properly pollinated, if no pollination took place then the female flower would simply wither and drop off, Do I take it then that the squash or pumpkin can still grow and swell with only minor pollination-and yet it still produces seeds inside of it even if flat rather than fat, one would think that it would not produce seed shells at all for all those dud ones and only produce fat germinating types, The funny thing about it all though is that the squash reached full size, and eventually turned yellowish tinge on the plant before cutting it for storage-giving all the indications of a full and ripe fruit. I collected the seeds from perhaps a hundred squash last year. Some immediately upon harvest, and some as much as 5 months after harvest. I didn't notice much difference between squash opened immediately and those saved for a long time, except that some seeds sprouted inside some squash that were saved for a long time. I generally scooped the seeds into a jar half filled with water to which I add a pinch of yeast and let it sit in a warm place for a few days, shaking vigorously a few times. Some seeds float. Those I throw away without even examining them. Some seeds sink. I save those for planting. Every squash had at least one viable seed in it. Some might have had only a half dozen seeds, while others might have had hundreds. In no case did I open up a squash that had zero viable seeds in it. I am blessed to be the neighbor of a beekeeper, so on any given day there might be 10,000 bees working in my garden. Regards, Joseph
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Post by raymondo on May 8, 2010 6:05:30 GMT -5
The ability to produce fruit without fertilisation is not unknown among cucurbits. This can vary over the season, as well as from cultivar to cultivar. Seeds exist in the embryonic fruit, so unfertilised ones will grow but will not contain an embryo. They'll be flat. Just empty shells. I harvest squash (and melon) for seed at the last possible moment, when a heavy frost is forecast. I prefer it if the fruit stem is already dry but this isn't always the case. Those that have green fruit stems I leave to cure for a month or so. I get a varying number of empty shells, sometimes just a few, sometimes almost all and very rarely every single one is empty. I don't know if it's related to pollinator numbers or not. There always seem to be plenty of bees and other insects around.
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Post by galina on May 9, 2010 3:46:01 GMT -5
The ability to produce fruit without fertilisation is not unknown among cucurbits............. I don't know if it's related to pollinator numbers or not. There always seem to be plenty of bees and other insects around. That's what I thought at first. Apparently, in nature, every flower is visited by 8 pollinating insects on average. So I tried multiple handpollination wherever possible. It made little difference (although it is still a good thing to do for diversity within a cultivar). But there is a clear difference when weather is taken into account. In particular temperatures. When we have daytime temperatures of below 16C/60F at flowering time, empty seeds galore. At 21C/70F pollen seems to be far more viable. At 25C/77F and on a sunny day, handpollinating squashes is easy. The recommendation to handpollinate early in the morning is not important for very cool weather gardeners either. Mid-day when it is warm, is a better time (unless we are in one of the very rare heat waves of course). As an aside, there are parthenocarpic tomatoes as well, which produce no or practically no seeds on the first truss, set when the weather is still cool, and a full seed count later. Prof J Baggett's tomatoes, but also Rosalie's Early Orange and one or two others.
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Post by robertb on May 9, 2010 14:54:45 GMT -5
I had flat pumpkin seeds three years ago, when the weather was so dreadful I had pollination problems with other things, and my bees nearly starved in midsummer because they couldn't get out to forage. I hand pollinate nowadays.
On a related subject, do cucurbits stop flowering once they have ripe fruit? I have an outdoor cucumber I'm growing mainly for seed, and I'm wondering at what stage in the summer I should do the pollination.
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Post by raymondo on May 9, 2010 16:07:19 GMT -5
On a related subject, do cucurbits stop flowering once they have ripe fruit? I have an outdoor cucumber I'm growing mainly for seed, and I'm wondering at what stage in the summer I should do the pollination. Good question. It would make sense that once a few fruit start ripening the plant would think its job done and stop producing flowers. I suspect it depends to some extent on species and within that on cultivar. Last season I grew two pumpkins (winter squash): Cucurbita maxima 'Crown Prince' and C. moschata 'Jap'. The first produced two fruit then stopped. The second just kept going producing one fruit every so often until frost. In the end it produced six fruit. In hindsight I should have removed the later fruit because none of them were fully ripe when frost hit.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Oct 7, 2015 12:26:59 GMT -5
Similar question: How long should you leave squash in storage after harvesting before eating them. I've read that several months to let them ripen more is good. Does letting them sit longer produce better flavor? I suspect it does.
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Post by notonari on Oct 8, 2015 2:04:40 GMT -5
I go by this explanation from Johnny's Seeds: www.johnnyseeds.com/t-eating_quality_in_winter_squashes.aspxIt seems the minimum storage period for maximas is a month in order to convert sufficient starch to sugar. At lower temperatures though, I found they seem to need significantly more than that. When a maxima reaches optimal eating quality seems to depend to a large degree on its dry matter content (i.e. eat squash with low dry matter content sooner). I'm not sure about moschatas, this is the first year I've grown them, and I read that they keep good eating quality fairly long, but I would suspect it would be similar to maximas.
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byathread
gopher
Sustainable, nutrient-dense, homestead gardening and breeding of staple crops & small-livestock.
Posts: 3
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Post by byathread on Oct 10, 2015 13:00:16 GMT -5
In my experience, moschatas cure to good eating quality more quickly than maximas, though I mostly prefer maximas for eating quality after they've cured for 2+ months. I think all squashes cure properly even with cool temperatures if given more time. YMMV.
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