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Post by Hristo on Dec 7, 2010 15:39:50 GMT -5
I had 2 plants, and more than 10 fruits from them, and among these 4 or 5 were hand pollinated. Of all these fruits I got no more than 30-40 semi-good seeds (not well filled, but enough some of them to germinate). Do not know why this. After you open it let me know how many good seeds was there in.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Dec 9, 2010 11:44:50 GMT -5
MNJRutherford, fascinating to find that out about you. Thanks Atash! I think our cultural diversity helps us with developing plant diversity. One of the most positive aspects of internet. Learning and developing intensive diversity is a fundamental survival skill. Hristo, you might want to consider developing your taste for sugar infused melon parts!
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Post by steev on Apr 4, 2011 21:27:58 GMT -5
You might find chayote an acceptable squash-like perennial.
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Post by steev on Apr 4, 2011 21:36:39 GMT -5
Watermelon-rind pickles were always part of festive meals at my great-grandmother Margretta's table, although I think they were mostly made by her younger sister, Aunt 'Til; pickled crabapples, too.
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Post by canadamike on Apr 4, 2011 23:39:45 GMT -5
AAAAHH !Chayotte
What a refreshing veggie! Not that tasty but so crunchy and fresh...I read that the seed is edible. Now if someone here, in this highly educated pool of gardeners/breeders/plant explorers could teach me something about cooking with the apparently delicious chayotte seeds, I would be immensely grateful...
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Post by steev on Apr 5, 2011 20:24:28 GMT -5
I just boil or bake the whole chayote ( hate to deal with them uncooked, they're so gluey sapped ), then peel, setting the flesh aside for whatever use, cutting the seed out of its tough coat, add salt and butter and munch. I sure wish the ratio of seed-to-flesh were reversed.
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Post by raymondo on Apr 9, 2011 7:08:54 GMT -5
Came across some wild Citrullus colocynthis on a plant collecting trip. It is perennial and a Dutch vegetable breeder, who was with us collecting plants, tells me it is used in watermelon breeding because it has some useful resistances. Of course, they're not interested in perenniality (they want to sell seeds!) but home gardeners might be. He reckons they cross readily so I might give it a go next season. I also collected some of our native perennial Cucumis species and some of our wild C. melo to play around with. These are all for a research project at the local university so I'll only be able to play round with whatever's left over unfortunately!
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Post by waltseed on May 17, 2011 18:01:29 GMT -5
Bck when I was in Africa in Peace Corps, I had a perinial pumpkin. Perinial there, that is. Actually it was a round, soccer-ball-sized sqash or pumpkin, I don't know the species, could have been moschata or such. It kept growing at one end, and rooting. It kept dieing at the other end, 20 or 30 feet behind. Call it 6 to 10m. I never measured, and it wasn't a constant anyway. I suspect many long-vined squash would do the same.
I grew up with buffalo gourds in south-central Kansas, USA. They are native. I got a bunch of hybrid buffalo gourd seeds from U of Arizona bck about 1982 or 1983. I was working on perennial crops at the Land Institute, and the U of A was working on arid-land crops. Buffalo gourd overlapped. Also about that time I did a litterature search on buffalo gourds. I found that someone at UofA had crossed diploid buffalo gourd with an amphiploid of 2 domestic squash species. I forget which species. So there was a triploid hybrid, comprized of one set of chromosomes from each of 3 species of squash, 2 domestic and buffalo gourd. Naturally, the allotriploid was sterile, but not just because chromosomes didn't pair. Rather, the flowers had no ovaries, no anthers, nor any such sexual parts. Just the corola, i.e. the fused petals. Pardon my lack of spelling. The people involved decided it would be useless to even try to double the chromosomes.
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