Cucurbita ficifolia x maxima - it's possible

[rhizowen]

Just to show that it's possible to cross Cucurbita ficifolia with C. maxima. F1 seems to be male sterile. Fruits are backcrossed to parents, but again, seem to be sterile. Very vigorous, tolerates cool wet weather, flowers until late in the season. If only they'd produce some seeds for a bit of F2 segregation. Might be able to tissue culture them to get new plants in the spring. This is supposed to be a difficult cross to achieve. I just stuck the male maxima flower into the female, got some seeds and they germinated. For our climate in Britain it would be excellent to get those cool tolerant genes into maxima. Has anyone else tried this cross - and succeeded in getting F2 seeds?

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[silverseeds]

Im going to be starting a project with this in mind next year.....

I know a person who has tried it before, to date that person was only scessful with mixta, and moschata. Im not sure if they got f2 seed or not, I dont think so.......

[silverseeds]

What specific maxima did you use? Id love to know, it might save me step in this project......

[rhizowen]

I used "Uchiki Kuri" aka "Red Kuri" - a japanese onion shaped squash that generally grows well here. Something similar should be available in the US. I'm wondering whether the low temperatures at the time of pollination might have been a factor in the success I had, perhaps helping to overcome stigma incompatibility.

[silverseeds]

Well Im going to have to get some red kuri then......

Ive got atleast 50 squash types already, to trial for this project, but I didnt focus on maximas, and have many more of the mixtas, and moschata, since I heard those were working. Im very glad you alerted me to the fact the others are worth trying also....

[rhizowen]

Good luck

My motto is: try anything and surprise the doubters.

[Alan]

Excellent Rhizowen, glad to see someone working with this material. It is a shame it only produced a mule, if only one or two seed should appear and be viable then we would really be onto something!

[mjc]

Well, remember, there is the occasional fertile mule...so it seems that it may just be a matter of numbers. (according to one source, the last recorder mule offspring was in 2004 and genetic testing was done to confirm parentage)

It should be easier to get larger numbers of a plant cross than a horse x donkey (mule).

[silverseeds]

That is what I am assuming with my plans mjc.
I have a wild perrenial gourd native to my area, which grows wild, even on this heavy dry soil.

Im going to grow a bunch of them, and other squashes, as many as I can. and just keep crossing and growing the f1s trying to get a f2 thats viable.

Actually the person I know working with a different perennial gourd after I talked to him more about it confirmed he did indeed get viable f2s.....

The bigger issue was he didnt retain the perennial nature of the root, which is the whole goal of course.....

[silverseeds]

I have seeds, to a VERY hardy wild perennial gourd. Im not positive of what it is. I have it narrowed down, but from pics I found online I am not 100 percent sure....

But its growing in heavy, dry clay soil, in a place with a short cool season.

I have seeds for whoever wants them.....

seeds taste edible, the gourds are not, useful for breeding, or to look at, and who knows maybe some lucky cross will happen sometime.....

[rhizowen]

This is all very interesting. As I've been ill for a while, I haven't been able to follow up all the comments. Cucurbita foetidissima has been crossed with C. ficifolia - by Thomas Andres. He wrote an article on possible crosses with C. ficifolia (forgive me if this has already been mentioned). I don't have the details to hand. I'd love to breed a coool weather tolerant perennial squash. Using C. foetidissima seems like a good way to go.

[atash]

Rhizowen, C. foetidissima has plenty to recommend it; it's a good tough hardy perennial species. The obstacle is that it is not closely-enough related to any of the domesticated squashes to produce fertile progeny.

Scientists were able to restore female fertility by producing allotetraploids from C. foetidissima x C. moschata. I suspect that research ended there. Here is Thomas Andres' account of it, that you mentioned: cuke.hort.ncsu.edu/cgc/cgc10/cgc10-37.html

They've gotten F2 progeny crossing C. foetidissima x C. pedatifolia, but that's not going to make either one of them any tastier! Got to either cross them with a domesticated species, or start from scratch. Supposedly the wild ancestors of domesticated squashes were just as bitter.

The cross with C. ficifolia produced offspring, but they produced none when crossed to themselves. However that was a small trial: 1 blossom!

C. ficifolia is interesting in its own right, but according to numerous sources its fruit is not particularly tasty as-is, so even if they got a stabilized ficifolia-foetidissima hybrid going, it would need more work.

[atash]

BTW, it's worth noting as MJC said: sometimes mules make babies. That's true even of literal mules, but among plant mules probably commoner.

I have a Kniphofia thompsonii var snowdenii in my yard. It's a triploid. A grower I know has it too--and patiently waits for whenever it makes an occasional seedpod. He's got hybrids and seedlings of it going.

Fuchsias routinely make seemingly impossible crosses, including domesticated varieties with odd numbers of chromosomes.

I don't know enough about Cucurbit genetics to know what the barrier is. Unfortunately some breeding barriers are very stubborn, like trying to cross Vireya Rhododendrons with non-Vireyas, even when they have the same number of chromosomes. You get, if anything, weak plants that are hard to keep alive, much less get a 2nd generation. It's hard to cross even Malesian Vireyas with coldhardy mainland Vireyas. Otherwise, we'd all have Rhododendrons in our yard with garish tropical colors and exotic fragrances, that bloom somewhat randomly throughout the year.

[rhizowen]

Thanks Atash, that's the work I was referring to. The root tubers on C.pedatifolia sound a tad more manageable than the monsters on C. foetidissima. Anyone know of a seed source?

[rhizowen]

BTW - ficifolia is very tasty at the immature stage, if somehat waterier than your average zucchini. Fried in olive oil it is delicious. The mature flesh is very sweet, but stringy, hence its use for jam making in forms such as "cheveux d'ange". The mature fruits keep incredibly well, often more than 3 years in my experience. The seeds, although flat, can be "popped" in a pan and are then much more easy to extract from the hulls. They are delicious. Now if a naked seeded mutation turned up.......