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Post by ottawagardener on Sept 3, 2012 9:35:18 GMT -5
Nice update and great looking squash. I agree great eyes on your little one. She looks like she's taking her part of the project with appropriate seriousness!
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Post by 12540dumont on Sept 3, 2012 12:04:50 GMT -5
Tim, Can you send me a helper along with seeds?
Squash looks great. This year I planted two 50 ft rows of LI Greenseed, so I should have plenty at the end of the season to share around, ifin it don't snow....or the creek rise.
Great work Ray & Tim! Really great work. I'm already thinking pie thoughts.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Dec 12, 2012 9:00:39 GMT -5
Seed comparison line-up shot with Ray's Pepita in the middle. Kakai is doing a stand-in for Lady Godiva since its closest seed I have to LG. Ray's Pepita is as hull-less as Kakai, but you can see the chlorenchyma is a grey color vs the green that Kakai and many of the more common hull-less pumpkins show. The Thelma Sanders is also seed from this year.  |
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Post by raymondo on Dec 12, 2012 14:35:52 GMT -5
Great comparison pic. I'm hoping to have at least five offspring plants. They're still in seedling trays and won't get planted out for another week or two.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Dec 13, 2012 7:32:13 GMT -5
I assume that means the seed germinated Ray?
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Post by raymondo on Dec 13, 2012 14:16:54 GMT -5
Yes, the second lot germinated quickly, almost 100%.
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Post by raymondo on Feb 10, 2013 4:24:29 GMT -5
Well, I don't know what the problem is but the pepita plants have done virtually nothing since being planted out. Other cucurbits planted out after them have already set fruit. These have barely grown. I planted ten. Two died and the rest are just sitting there! Even if they were to set fruit in the next week it's probably too late for it to ripen. I might dig one up and put it in a pot just to get at least one fruit.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 10, 2013 13:52:14 GMT -5
Well that's too bad. I wonder what is going on?
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 26, 2014 7:05:23 GMT -5
Well, 2014 is looking much better for Ned Kelly than 2013. In 2013 all my Ned Kelly fruits were useless, as nothing I hand pollinated took. I also lost most of the planting to a combination of weeds and bacterial wilt brought in by a giant cucumber beetle population. This year the cuke beetles are extremely sparse. I have a group of F3 plants from my 2012 seed and a group of F4 plants from 12540dumont's 2013 seed. I already have several fruits set on the plants that gave me early female flowers. There is definitely an interesting level of segregation going on for vine structure (branched vs strongly apically dominant) and leaf size, shape, and mottling. It is too early to say how all the fruits will look, but there are definitely a lot of acorn shapes, and many are going to be cream fruit colored based on old pictures I have. Interestingly, a big challenge in hand pollinating this time is the presence of squash bees and bumbles. I have the Ned Kelly planting a bit set apart from my other squash and I've had several taped fruits rendered useless by bees chewing through the side of the flower to get inside. I think if there are an abundance of open flowers nearby they don't bother to do this, but if a majority of flowers are taped they start breaking and entering. Live and learn. In the past I've always taped the tips of the flowers and been fine, with the Ned Kelly this year I've started loosely covering the entire flower with painters tape to keep the bees from chewing into them. |
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Post by 12540dumont on Jul 26, 2014 23:24:51 GMT -5
Tim/Ray, An update here. I STILL have squash on the shelf from last year. The squash bugs this year are again horrible, so I couldn't risk anything important. They've taken 2 zukes (both jade numbat) They are working on the Romanesco. Joe's Paradise Zuke (which is yellow) and his Crooked Joe seam unaffected. I'll see what happens next.
By the way. I just discovered that a bi weekly feeding of pepitos mixed in lactose free yogurt keep the cats free of worms. Yeah squash! I expect my problems with the deadly squash bug stem from both my love of squash and the conventional farmer next door who's planted 10 acres of zukes. sigh.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 26, 2014 23:41:29 GMT -5
I STILL have squash on the shelf from last year. I have one squash left from last season... It's a gorgeous Maxima pumpkin. An F2 hybrid between a Hubbard and a Pink Banana. I just can't stand the thought of opening it and finding out that it's all rotten inside or bitter or whatever. I'd take it to the farmer's market, but what if it's bad? So it just sits there week after week. A few friends tell me that they are still holding onto some of my butternuts from last season. |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 27, 2014 6:00:03 GMT -5
12540dumont Have you broken into a stored Ned Kelly recently? The hard rind would seem to make it a great keeper, but I'm really interested to know if the seeds start to sprout inside. I've found that seed dormancy varies pretty dramatically in pepos. Delicata will still be dormant in the following spring, but zucchini seed will begin sprouting inside the fruit very quickly after full maturity.
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Post by jondear on Jul 28, 2014 20:34:36 GMT -5
There is definitely an interesting level of segregation going on for vine structure (branched vs strongly apically dominant) and leaf size, shape, and mottling. Interestingly, a big challenge in hand pollinating this time is the presence of squash bees and bumbles. I have the Ned Kelly planting a bit set apart from my other squash and I've had several taped fruits rendered useless by bees chewing through the side of the flower to get inside. I think if there are an abundance of open flowers nearby they don't bother to do this, but if a majority of flowers are taped they start breaking and entering. Live and learn. In the past I've always taped the tips of the flowers and been fine, with the Ned Kelly this year I've started loosely covering the entire flower with painters tape to keep the bees from chewing into them. Seems like branched plants would be desirable for small fruited squash. I finally have planted my Maxima's far enough apart to really observe each plant. I gave in row spacing of 5 feet with 8 feet between rows. I have an f3 sweet mama that looks like a spider it has so many branches. Each has set multiple fruit and I wonder if the roots can sweeten that much squash. Granted the thing is rooting at the nodes so the only way I'll find out is to let em grow and see. |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 28, 2014 20:43:17 GMT -5
There seems to be some kind of hormonal control of fruit set. Once the threshold for maximum number of seeds is met the additional fruits abort, often then never even open, just turn yellow and wither. I think it is genetically controlled and can be selected for independent of branching/apical dominance. Personally I like a branched plant, it gives better total ground cover and it doesn't set the plant back so hard if you cultivate the primary vine tip, because many other growing points are already active.
Another thing that is segregating in Ned Kelly is the node position of the first female flowers. This year plants 3,4,and 7 are my precocious plants. When you are hand pollinating, a precocious plant is great, it gives you more time and chancers to get a fruit selfed.
Honestly, the hardest part of this whole naked seeded project is all the selfing. Selfing a winter squash is harder than you'd think. Very often the plants won't have a male and female flower open on the same day until the plants get really large. You have to get ruthless and cut a lot of the early female flowers off to keep the plant fertile. If you let it set a lot of fruits, by the time you've got a good set of overlapping flowers the plant doesn't want to set any more fruits on and half the time your nice selfed fruit aborts a few days after you did your pollinations. Its a PITA and I understand why there aren't many good naked seeded cultivars, its very labor intensive, and a professional breeder would also be trying to backcross to a fruit shape and character that matched a specific market class. Ray and I aren't bound by those constraints. So Ned Kelly can be whatever it wants to be, which seems to be white, hardshelled, pale seeded, and warty.
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Post by jondear on Jul 28, 2014 20:53:54 GMT -5
My goal this year it to take more pictures and keep better notes so I can determine which types are really doing better in my garden. I need a lot more room to plant many fruit to row but I am working a few angles to achieve that for next year.
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