Naked Seeded Squash Breeding

[ilex]

Apr 26, 2013 16:25:12 GMT -5 cletus said:

So its not easy crossing the naked seeded with hulled varieties and getting naked seeded progeny then. I was reading about C. pepo Tatume's unusual heat/drought/borer tolerance and vigor, and I got to thinking it would be nice to have these qualities in a naked seeded kind. With enough crossing I assume its doable. I'd like to try it with Little Greenseed.

The problem is that there are quite a few genes involved. It's doable, you just need more luck, or more space to fix 5 or 6 genes, than to fix 1.

As a side note, tatume is one of the best to eat raw (inmature), is fairly compact and won't climb.

[cletus]

Yumm I can't wait to try Tatume this year. So it is fairly compact for a ground covering squash then, what would you estimate per plant in your climate? If as Oxbow suggests the probability is closer to 1 in 30 that is still indeed a decent amount of space, but if its deer resistant then its no worries (are there differing degrees of deer resistance in cucurbit foliage?). I'm trying to move more towards varieties which are not only vigorous/low care, but capable of reseeding. I'm guessing it would be tough for a naked seeded squash to successfully self-seed. And whatever the quality of the immature or mature flesh--vigor, borer resistance, and naked seeds would be great for starters. Might play with working spaghetti squash into the mix eventually. Need more time/stability and less traveling, which I won't have this season.

[12540dumont]

Naked Ned Kelly coming out of the field. I just harvested them today, I can't wait to try them

They are prolific. I took 2 wagon loads out from 6 plants.

It may seem early to harvest, but the squash bugs are out in droves. These have been in the field since 5/3. Almost 3 months and they sure look ready to me. More on these after I taste one

Thanks Ox and Raymundo!

[raymondo]

I'm keen to see what's inside them Holly. Mine did so badly last season. I'm tempted to grow some at my son's place this season. He lives in the subtropics and squash do really well for him.

[12540dumont]

Ray, I cannot get any photos to post. I keep getting the error message that this forum has exceeded its limit. So, I posted it to my blog, so you can see it. foothillfarm.blogspot.com/

I think the seeds are nearly naked. So I have a nearly naked Ned Kelly.

The flesh was wonderful. Good Job! Thanks for the seeds.

[raymondo]

Nice Holly, but you should give credit where it's due. Oxbow did the growout and found this squash amongst the plants he grew. He also chose the name because of the hard shell and it's Australian connection. All I did was make the original cross and grow out the F1.

[templeton]

Naked Ned Kelly is just throwing up all sorts of weird metal-clad outlaw mental images...
T

[12540dumont]

Tim, you have a talent for this! Yes, naked is how we came in, and how we'll all go, except those of us in armor. Armor plated squash, you bet, now no cutting off the flanges getting these open. If I didn't want the seed, I would have stabbed the wee beastie and roasted it in the oven.

Gentlemen, once again a pleasure to grow and eat. Burp.

[oxbowfarm]

Holly, try and save several of these from Leo for seed. My patch isn't looking so hot. So far I haven't gotten a single hand pollinated fruit to take and I've lost several hills to squash bugs, which is pretty unusual for me here. Did they have the really hard shell? How thick was the flesh?

[12540dumont]

Ox, I will send you a whole one Only way to get those seeds by Leo, who's still grumpy that I didn't plant him any LGS. I sent out half to the CSA, and think I'll keep the rest.

HARD? HARD? Are you kidding, this is axe material. Flesh about 1 1/2 inches, I didn't get out the calipers.

Squash bugs are gruesome here this year. They are ruining many of the winter squash. All of my zukes are already destroyed. My "helper" and I use this term very very loosely, picked my seed zuke and put it in my kitchen. I discovered it this morning...there was subsequently a loud shrill noise. The best laid plans of farm wives are often driven to chaos by help. 500 pounds of grapes to pick and she picked the ginormous zuke. Well, I can only hope that it was on the vine long enough to make viable seed. I have a large orange tape over another variety.

[diane]

I plan to try some naked-seeded breeding this summer, so I've been re-reading all the posts from past years.

The last comment was last August. Has anything been happening since then?

[steev]

I must get to processing my crop of naked-seed before they rot or my landlady gets on my case, whichever comes first. I'm thinking of putting the "guts" in a sink full of water and squishing out the seeds to separate them from the pulp. Anybody got a better idea?

[oxbowfarm]

diane just that Holly saved Ned Kelly from an early demise. It is also pleasing to me that a lot of the F2 traits seem to be breeding true. Some variability for fruit shape but they are all hard shelled white acorn shapes.

From my own personal experience with the naked seeded squash breeding, the initial cross is easy, you just need two plants. The F1 is even easier, you just need to self one plant. The F2 generation is where it is really beneficial to have a lot of space to grow out as many individuals as you can get away with. Theoretically you should find a naked seeded segregate with approx 31 plants, but you are better off with more. I had planted 50+ hills and ended up with 40 plants, only got one single plant that was naked seeded. The other thing you have to do is self pollinate all F2 plants in order to maintain the naked seed trait, so you end up hand pollinating a huge number of fruits. It was great practice.

I found it helpful to temporarily mark all the selfed fruits as I pollinated them with a flag, then I went back a few days later after they would have taken, and scored the plant number and "Self" on the fruit so that I could ID the proper fruits to save seed from, in the event that they were naked seeded.

Here's the squash that turned out to be Ned Kelly. I never did scar this fruit for some reason. It was a lot of fruits.


Here's a scarred selfed fruit. This one didn't amount to anything. You can see it has the same hard shell/wart genetics. Interesting that this trait is was so common in the majority of the F2 squash, since neither parents show it.

[oxbowfarm]

Here's a big pile of hand pollinated fruits that didn't make the cut.

[bunkie]

Animal food, maybe?