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Post by darwinslair on Aug 20, 2011 4:53:08 GMT -5
So this year I am growing the Arikara squash indescriminately with Knife River Landrace. I have plenty of seed from Arikara, and it does fine for me, but I have never read an account of the old squashes when grown by the native americans in the Dakota's having consistent shapes, sizes or colors. Due to their fantastic sucess compared to other agricultural societies at the time, and just how variable our climate seems to be now, I thought it would be a good idea to just work on the diversity of short season Maxima's gene pool. <shrug> I am curious how it will go. The Knife River and Arikara are setting fruits just fine, and in fact Knife River has completely ripened fruits already that I have found sluffed off of the vines. So far their fruits are smaller than Arikara's get, and very variable in size, shape and color. I will try to get photos up on the blog later this weekend. Right now I am not where I can upload or edit things. Tom threedaughtersfarm.com/wp/ |
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Post by 12540dumont on Aug 22, 2011 11:45:07 GMT -5
Tom, I have barn envy. This is my Aunt's in MN. This is out in the Iron Range, where I was born. I saw yours. I'd love to try your squash. I have been growing Winter Luxury pie pumpkins. They are pepos. I plant in June and yesterday I harvested a bumper crop and pulled the vines. I love a crop that gives up it's space so that I can rotate. Let me know how many days to harvest that squash was. Thanks, Holly Attachments:
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Post by darwinslair on Aug 22, 2011 17:08:55 GMT -5
I would love to have that barn you saw in my photo. That shot is at the Ness Gardens and the barn belongs to Lance Ness and his family.
I have gardens wherever people let me. <smile>
My property is only 50X150, and I have a house on it too. But I do garden the whole thing.
Tom
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Post by darwinslair on Oct 2, 2011 8:55:38 GMT -5
Just as a note: Of the Knife River landrace squash, the variability is enormous. I have squash, finished and cured, from 1 pound to 20+. Not from the same vines, but shape, size, vining, and maturity times are widely disparate. Seeds are only going to be saved from those that did well and I will post a photo showing the breadth of fruits here when I get a chance.
Tom
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 3, 2011 0:53:13 GMT -5
Tom, today I harvested a 29 pound Naples Long. I could only get half of it in the oven at one go. I'm thinking pumpkin thoughts! I'll post a picture after I get through baking the thing.
Every recipe starts the same, take a clean pan. How can I? They're full of pumpkin!
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Post by caledonian on Oct 8, 2011 8:20:30 GMT -5
So this year I am growing the Arikara squash indescriminately with Knife River Landrace. I have plenty of seed from Arikara, and it does fine for me, but I have never read an account of the old squashes when grown by the native americans in the Dakota's having consistent shapes, sizes or colors. My understanding is that the original strains grown by the natives are long dead, and the plants bearing their names are generally lines that have been bred to resemble the traditional ones in appearance but not other characteristics. Sometimes, the original strains were lost by the tribes themselves, and while they did grow the plants with their names, their source was Europeans... as was the case with the Arikara sunflower. Making a grex out of squash lines sounds like a great idea to me, though. I just wouldn't expect the project to have much connection to ancient agriculture. |
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Post by darwinslair on Oct 8, 2011 9:57:01 GMT -5
So this year I am growing the Arikara squash indescriminately with Knife River Landrace. I have plenty of seed from Arikara, and it does fine for me, but I have never read an account of the old squashes when grown by the native americans in the Dakota's having consistent shapes, sizes or colors. My understanding is that the original strains grown by the natives are long dead, and the plants bearing their names are generally lines that have been bred to resemble the traditional ones in appearance but not other characteristics. Sometimes, the original strains were lost by the tribes themselves, and while they did grow the plants with their names, their source was Europeans... as was the case with the Arikara sunflower. Making a grex out of squash lines sounds like a great idea to me, though. I just wouldn't expect the project to have much connection to ancient agriculture. All of it is native genetics. They all originated here. <smile> We will see how it goes. Tom |
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2011 21:55:17 GMT -5
So this year I am growing the Arikara squash indescriminately with Knife River Landrace. I have plenty of seed from Arikara, and it does fine for me, but I have never read an account of the old squashes when grown by the native americans in the Dakota's having consistent shapes, sizes or colors. My understanding is that the original strains grown by the natives are long dead, and the plants bearing their names are generally lines that have been bred to resemble the traditional ones in appearance but not other characteristics. Sometimes, the original strains were lost by the tribes themselves, and while they did grow the plants with their names, their source was Europeans... as was the case with the Arikara sunflower. Making a grex out of squash lines sounds like a great idea to me, though. I just wouldn't expect the project to have much connection to ancient agriculture. Don't be fooled, many of those ancient strains, particularly on the east coast, the south west and north west do still exist. Yes, from time to time there have been introgressions of new genetics into the pools but this is to be expected as selection was often practiced on a mass scale from the genetics of many varieties in a species. This is the essence of ancient agriculture as variation occured quite frequently even amongst members of a tribe growing a "variety". |
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Post by canadamike on Oct 12, 2011 21:27:46 GMT -5
To support Alan, as far as I know, ''introgression'' would be better qualified as a way of life with native cultures, try to find something in the american ( from the americas) crops that has not used diversity (read constant introgression or else) as a ''way of life''...good luck... And I am far from convinced we are only talking about plants here... not the most racists of folks, these people, neither with plants nor with people  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 18, 2011 11:09:15 GMT -5
To support Alan, as far as I know, ''introgression'' would be better qualified as a way of life with native cultures, try to find something in the american ( from the americas) crops that has not used diversity (read constant introgression or else) as a ''way of life''...good luck... And I am far from convinced we are only talking about plants here... not the most racists of folks, these people, neither with plants nor with people That's about right. And then as soon as the seed gets acquired by a different culture then the seed becomes fixed in a seed bank. And grown in careful isolation so that nothing can possibly pollute the purity of the seed acquired from the natives. |
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Post by Darth Slater on Oct 18, 2011 22:35:23 GMT -5
I would really love to get a hold of lakota squash, and how does arikara rate compared to, anyone?
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Post by darwinslair on Oct 19, 2011 8:07:13 GMT -5
Arikara is as early as I have ever seen a stabilized maxima. Lakota is supposed to be better table fare and not as early.
Tom
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Post by darwinslair on Aug 27, 2012 20:36:48 GMT -5
This year, as most of you that know me undestand, has been an interesting year, to say the least. I planted a large number of the seeds from my largest squash from last year at my parent's home. I have not been back to that garden for various reasons since Father's day back in June. I have no idea if the deer and weeds have left anything for me there. However, I planted several hills of it at my home as well. once thinned down, it was 12 plants of disturbingly vigorous vines. They have really covered a large portion of my yard, and underneath the leaves I do see quite a few large yellow fruits. This one was easy to photograph because it is suspended from the pea trellis which was a good 15 feet away from the closest squash hill. Tom Attachments:
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jan 9, 2017 23:21:51 GMT -5
I grew a commercialized strain of something called Lakota squash once. It was a pretty squash but I read it's history and the strain I had wasn't a true Native American squash. It had some dark orange patches on it and this year was the first time those showed back up in my squash. Maybe some of it's genes live on. Yes, sad that some people think that Lakota Squash [in it's current form] is a native american squash. The original did not have hubbard ancestry, but was bred with hubbard to produce what is today known as Lakota. I was curious in the oblong mottled non-hubbard parent landrace variety so i emailed a lady at the Nebraska University that bred the variety. They has some of the original landrace seed left, but it was so old she wasn't sure if it would still grow. Last year I asked her to send it anyway and sent it Joseph who was kind enough to give it a shot. I think he said the seeds for the orange green oblong fruits did not survive past seedlings or something like that, but the other black oblong ones did and produced a few fruit which joseph has seed for at this moment in time. Though it sounded like it did not grow well for him and that it is not a variety he is looking to grow again. If you want seed for it to maybe backcross to a lakota and recover something similar to the orignal that might be interesting. Ask Joseph about it if it's something that interests you. By chance have you grown the "Gete-Okosomin" squash yet? I'd be interested if you ever do. It's apparently a landrace variety from the Miami Nation of Indiana. I'd also be interested in seeing pictures of the landrace squash or native american varieties you have grown, and perhaps which ones have been you favorite and why. also last year someone on this forum was growing a giant native squash from south american which looked really interesting. |
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Post by steev on Jan 10, 2017 2:13:25 GMT -5
Sounds very promising to us all.
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