Breeding maximas

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Interesting. Even without the mottled coloring they look quite interesting and different than i would have imagined. Still i'm quite pleased to know how the original "Lakota Squash" actually looks without having been hand crossed with Hubbard ancestry.

How did your other squashes turn out this year?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Sept 13, 2016 20:30:38 GMT -5 keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) said:

How did your other squashes turn out this year?

It seems like some of the squash didn't do very well. Some of them did OK. The recent frost didn't kill the plants, so I may get a second crop like I did last year. The frost only nipped the upper leaves, so there might be more squash that are not obvious under the lower leaves.

Here is my YTD harvest. These are the maxima buttercups, the small-fruited moschata landrace, and my daddy's strain of Charleston Grey watermelon.

[steev]

I've always liked the "Halloween"-colored squash; pleasant to see in the pantry.

[shoshannah]

Joseph Lofthouse,  I find your buttercup cross very attractive.  I've got to try some of that.  Your watermelons are huge.  I remember my Dad waiting for the price to go down on melons around the 4th of July.

They were the huge Congo striped ones.  They were so cheap back then it's hard imagining saving a few more pennies a pound.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.): Here's all 4 of those Lakota squash from just-after-the-white-man's-university-got-hold-of-them. Each plant produced one fruit. The other variety didn't produce any.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Thanks for the grow report. I'm happy just to see them grown. I must admit they are much different from what i imagined. Were you able to grow any of the "wild pueblo" squash seeds i sent you. I don't think i sent very many so i wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get any. Just curious. I only got one this year myself (It is still growing).

I'm interested to know more about the oblong or banana types you grow. I don't know much about them but i've heard they are quite tasty and produce well for their size and shape. I know you have some crossed with hubbards that you really like, but i don't know if i would like those or not as the last time i grew hubbards they were much too hard skinned for my liking. But i'd like to know more about the banana types or others of similar shape. That "Gete-okosomin" falsely reported 800 year old squash was one of those types that also looked good and fun to grow. I never did receive any seed for that from the person who said they would share some seed.

p.s. those CG watermelons look gigantic! Let me know if you ever cross those with your yellow landrace watermelons!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.): Memory is so fickle. I don't remember if I planted the Wild Pueblo.

The commercial "Banana Squash" that I have planted tended to grow sporadically. Sure I harvested a nice squash from time to time, but not reliably. To me the taste seems watery and bland, My daddy grew some Banana squash one year that got pollinated by a Hubbard. The offspring of that squash tasted wonderful! They had a soft skin. I included them in my landrace planting the next year, and a few of them have been showing up every year since. I have selected them for fruit size closer to ten pounds instead of 40 pounds.

I keep a good sample of the banana types in my landrace:




I made crosses between those Charleston Gray watermelons, and my landrace melons. I have seed laying around somewhere... All this effort that I have spent attempting to breed a watermelon landrace, and the strain of watermelon that my daddy has been saving seed from for decades still out-performs.

[diane]

There have been a couple of comments approving soft-skinned squash. Do they keep?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Oct 12, 2016 12:03:09 GMT -5 diane said:

There have been a couple of comments approving soft-skinned squash. Do they keep?

I've stored a soft-skinned maxima squash for 440 days. It was storing fine when I got tired of having it in the house. There was no sugar left in the fruit, so taste was bleck. In general, I think of maximas as storing for 3 to 5 months, regardless of whether they have a hard-shell, or soft-skin. I'm leaning towards saying that soft-skins store longer.

[troppo]

Very nice looking maximas there Joseph. I'm a long time lurker having recently introduced myself on the introductions page. I've been playing around plant breeding for a few years now ever since having studied at uni and working for some big Ag seed breeding companies, but your landrace breeding work has encouraged me to seriously take it up as a major project. I have been following your adventures on Mother earth news for a while. Whilst my heart is in grains (given my farming background), I love using heirloom/heritage vegies as the possibilities are endless!

I'm currently undertaking a maxima project aiming for an outcome similar to yours however instead of the buttercup shape I'm aiming for more of a familiar pumpkin shape as people where I live are a bit fickle trying new things. I'm using Strawberrycrown as a parent line as it has the shape I'm after and has always grown exceptionally well for me and I'm backcrossing buttercup and some kabocha types to get a bit better quality flesh with similar colouring to yours.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I cut open and tasted the Lakota squash. If they weren't part of a special breeding project, I would have culled them. Taste was bland. The color was pale.

Before Lakota:

High Resolution Version

Today, I tasted the medium-sized maxima squash and saved seeds from the good tasting ones.

Medium Maxima Squash

[farmermike]

Joseph, is that your whole breeding stock for medium maximas? How many of those were good enough to save seeds?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Nov 21, 2016 16:56:08 GMT -5 farmermike said:

Joseph, is that your whole breeding stock for medium maximas? How many of those were good enough to save seeds?

I kept about 27 fruits this year as seed candidates for the "medium maxima" landrace. About 7 were culled because of taste, texture, hard skin, poor-keeping, or a seed cavity like a watermelon. When I plant them, I expect to include some seed from the 2014 and 2015 growing seasons, and I expect to trial a couple of varieties from seed swaps. I may include seeds at planting time from a few specialty projects like the "fig-leaved maximas".

I haven't processed the "small maximas" yet. When I do, if there is something with fabulous color or taste, I may plant some of them into the "medium" patch next year.

[rangardener]

My adventure in kabocha was probably nothing but re-inventing the wheel. I got a nudge from reading this forum. It has been more fun than I expected. Thanks go especially to jondear for inspirations.

Over years we have grown a few OP C. maxima winter squashes, we used them baked, fried, or sometimes, soup for breakfast. Just like any food, once getting into TASTE it is impossible to say if what works for one person would work for another, and that was the problem for me. Among those we tried, including some highly touted for our bio-region, while nice in my opinion, NONE pleased my wife. I was frustrated. The only winter squash she liked was some store bought kabocha (of Mexican origin) - for the dry texture and distinct flavor, great especially for tempuras. (I could have done better if I knew the name “kabocha”, so much ignorance. ) It was not likely any further trying would result in anything that pleased her, I thought why not use seeds out of store bought kabocha when she came across a good one. De-hybridization seemed like something I could monkey around. I thought it would take 3-4 years at least, and if it failed I still would have made some good compost anyway.

The first year (2015):
- probably around 10 plants, 2014 seeds from one squash (I should have taken a photo).
- about 1/4 passed my wife’s taste test, (probably) looked like store bought squashes. Seeds saved & pooled.
- two types in the remaining 3/4:

> orange
Completely bland, discarded.



> gray/green
After a brief microwave zapping, the texture and taste reminded me of chestnut. Interesting. Seeds saved, but not pursued.
Note: I wonder whether something like this contributed to the dry texture of the parent squash.



Due to the low number of plants, there might not be actual co-segregation of appearances and tastes, but it gave such an impression.

The second year (2016):
- 12 plants, 2015 seeds.
- Almost all looked like the parents from 2015. When freshly opened, the aroma reminds me of some good water melons. My wife has been happy with them, I sure love eating them myself. Some were a little bland but the majority were good. Seeds from better tasting squashes were saved for 2017.



- I probably should not have cured them for more than a month, I left them in the living room corner after the harvest in October and just kept eating. As of January, some were a little moist when baked, but overall the flavor was consistent. Have since moved them to a unheated room. The keeping quality seemed decent. 

- I don’t trust my memory. I have no way to compare the “dryness” to the original, but seems good enough. My wife thinks a bit drier would be nice.

- The yield was low, less than 2 squashes per plant.
Note: I grew these in compost piles of plant trimmings and grass clippings, with a bucket of garden soil for each plant. I don’t think this is the best way to grow them, it was just my lazy resistance to the very aggressive weeds.



To me this pool is good enough for my original goal in the taste department. I don’t plan to further “purify” it. I’d continue with trying other kabocha or small C. maxima squashes and add them to this “starter” pool. If things do not look right I can always backtrack one step. Eating quality (per her approval ), keeping quality, and plant vigor are what I’ll be paying attention to. So far I only grew about 20 plants per year. Don’t think we can eat more than that ourselves. I have no idea whether the population is too small.

I welcome comments.

[philagardener]

Sounds like nice progress, rangardener !