Squash Crossin (NOT!)

[daylilydude]

I need some help! I'm gonna grow a few different varities of winter squash and would like to know how to keep them from crossing? I know its prolly best to grow 1 at a time but i'm gonna try at least 7 or 8 different ones. Is there a site that i can read up on this or has anyone done it that can explain the process? THANKS for any advice !

[johno]

You can be fairly safe to grow 4 different species, 1 variety of each, with no means of protection. Beyond that, you'll either have to hand pollinate or separate them by distance.

[daylilydude]

Thanks johno, and if i hand pollinate how do you keep it from being done again by lil bees and things? Do you bag the blossom or what?

[bluelacedredhead]

Yep. Bag it & Tag it

[johno]

Seed to Seed gives very specific instructions.

If you don't have access to that book, I can post them, but it would be a long post.

There are male flowers and female flowers. You'll have to take one to the other. Meanwhile, the bees just love 'em, so you have to keep them out of the equation.

Probably the best thing is to keep them enclosed with floating row covers until it's convenient to do some hand pollinating, because that keeps ALL the bugs out (except the ones that happen to hatch out of the ground there.)

[bluelacedredhead]

Richard, try going to
www.bigpumpkins.com
I'm sure they must have something there about hand pollination. I haven't been there for a while. This poor old puter crashed and I lost all my bookmarks. I hope that's the right link.

[Alan]

Check out the rambling on squash breeding over at www.liseed.org there are pretty specific instructions on "selfing" or self pollinating squash and then preventing further contamination from neigboring plants, it's pretty informative, unfortunately it is also pretty labor intensive, but totally worth it if you want to maintain something pretty rare. I hope this helps.

If you want a direct link, I'll look it up for you and post it here for you.

-Alan