Anyone else tried Green Tiger F1 Zucchini ?

[oxbowfarm]

I was looking online for a source for an Italian white zucchini I had seen recommended on another farmers blog when I ran across Green Tiger. It has been available from a few companies in the US for a while but I had never heard of it before. I decided to give it a shot due to the pretty picture. www.gourmetseed.com/product/ZS44/Zucchini-Green-Tiger-F1-Hybrid.html
I have to say it has been a huge winner for us at market. Usually once the home gardeners start producing zucchini and giving them away to any random stranger, zucchini sales at farmers market falls way off. But people see these and the stripes push them over the edge. They are so enamored of the pretty stripes that they decide to buy them and just compost the free zukes that Charlie at work stuck in their car. The trick seems to be that Green Tiger is still instantly recognizable as a zucchini but is visually stunning. They have no fear of it being something weird, which is a reaction I often get about golden zucchini.
The main downside from my perspective is that the seed is only available in fairly small quantities from a few companies that I don't usually patronize. With that in mind I've selfed one of them to see what an F2 Green Tiger looks like. I also hand pollinated a Bianco di Sicilia white zucchini with Green Tiger just to see what happens.

All in all I am really pleased with this spur of the moment purchase and am excited about messing with breeding the stripy zucchini. I may have seed from both available to trade/share, they are still on the plant so I don't want to count my chickens.

[canadamike]

I just look it up and it is a beauty, thanks for the info. I sure would be interested in some seeds of these crosses. I have a great vining line of a white zuke that coukd be crossed with it...

[oxbowfarm]

No problem Mike. The Bianco di Sicilia cross is curing in the spare room right now. Not sure if I will ever grow that variety straight again. Seems to be pretty susceptible to the local strain of powdery mildew. I harvested the seed zucchinis and pulled the plants a week and a half ago. The Green Tigers are still going strong pumping out squash like crazy. They do have mildew so I expect them to go down soon, but right now they seem to be ignoring it. Very pleasant surprise considering the description doesn't say anything about powdery mildew tolerance. I'm going to be sending some of the Green Tiger F2 seed to Raymondo also so we will get the bonus of having a sense of what the F2s will look like before next spring!

[canadamike]

last year, out of 200, I had about 20 melons that pumped out like there is no tomorrow despite being covered by PM. Not one green leaf in sight in the patch, so do not despear. If I was you, I would try putting some iodine on a couple of leaves or plants, just to see what it does...

[oxbowfarm]

Do you mean tincture of iodine? Straight or diluted? It's never occurred to me to try and treat PM. I always figure its just one of those things that happens every year like clockwork. Like the annual flea beetle plague.