dual purpose melons and squash?

[gilbert]

Armenian cucumbers are technically melons. Would it be possible to breed a variety that would be good as a cucumber when young (delayed ripening compared to standard melons, soft skin and seeds, bland taste, crunchy texture, long and thin) and as a melon when mature (soft and sweet flesh?) Could it be possible to breed it with an edible rind, so that the long, thin shape could be sliced up into melon rings (the seeds would be poked out of each ring?)

What about a squash that produced high quality zucchini when young, and delecata squash when mature? 

I wonder this for two reasons; it would make maintaining pepo squash landraces simpler (only one landrace for both summer and winter) and it would solve the problems of zucchini and cucumbers that got away, and melons and winter squash that failed to ripen in time. 

I'd think they'd be much more useful, as well as a potentially salable novelty. 

[oxbowfarm]

With regard to the melon cross, I'd say it might be possible to do the cucumber to melon thing, although I'd bet that in order to make that work you would need to accept harvesting the cucumber stage at much smaller sizes than people typically harvest Armenian cucumber, they are often picked at a size that is pretty close to the mature fruit size. I imagine that if you want to select for sweet flesh at maturity then they will not be very cucumberlike when they get to typical armenian cucumber size. As far as the rind, I have no idea, that would be a good question for a pro cucurbit breeder, of which there is at least one up at CSU, at least there was when I was in school there.

Pretty much all pepos can be eaten as summer squash in the immature state and they are good that way. I don't know of any squash that get as sweet as Delicatas do and still have useable size immature fruits though. And I think size/sweetness is something of an inverse trade-off. It would be a big breeding project.

[rowan]

Chinese style pickling melons fit your melon description though they don't get quite as sweet as the usual ones. I don't bother growing them any more as I don't think they are particularly good for either use, though they are passable.
Butternut squashes make very good zucchini when young and my favourite mature sweet squash. Tromboncino are well known for being duel purpose but the others are just as good. I really don't like delicatas, I don't find them any sweeter than moschatas.

[Day]

It reminds me of a marketing problem I read about somewhere -- how people believe that if "Object A" can do two things, and "Object B" can only do one thing, then Object A must be doing an inferior job at two things while Object B must be doing a superior job at one thing. Ex: Using separate shampoo and conditioner versus using a shampoo/conditioner, or that a combo washer/dryer is incapable of washing or drying your clothes as well as if you had a dedicated machine for each, etc.

With this thinking, the 'bigger project' in all of this might just be getting people to believe you when you say a variety can do both, is a quality summer and a winter squash for example. Because I wager what they'll think you're really saying is: "This squash is edible and decent as both a summer and winter, so if you want convenience at the expense of quality, this is the squash for you!"

Playing with genetics to get what you want is one project -- playing with people's brains, a whole other one. Both very interesting, and very big projects - I approve

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Reminds me of what I did at the farmer's market this year... I sold zucchini as both summer squash, and winter squash. But as winter squash, they got the name of "Marrow". And some people came back to get more marrows after trying them for the first time.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jan 8, 2018 20:51:12 GMT -5 gilbert said:

it would solve the problems of zucchini and cucumbers that got away,

I was horrified one time at the farmer's market, because I was rushed when picking cucumbers, and put a super mature cucumber into the basket with the immature cucumbers. Someone wanted to buy it immediately. I felt really bad about selling a ripe cucumber! I had thrown dozens into the compost while harvesting. But I took more the next week, and they sold. Nowadays, I only pick cucumbers once a week, so I get a range from tiny immature to ripe. They all sell. I learned from this that I really can't predict what people want to buy.

And this year, my zucchini also became dual purpose: courgettes and marrows.

[steev]

Re separate shampoo and conditioner: I always just got shampoo until my big-box store stopped selling separates; so now I get the combo (more costly), but my pits and pubes have never been so lustrous and manageable.

My favorite dual-purpose squash is Guatemalan Blue, lovely flavor and texture immature and very good as a Winter squash.

[walt]

Native Search/Search list some squash as being used for bother winter and summer squash.  Haven't tried them.
I eat the summer squash that I save for seeds.  They are OK.  Not my favorite.

[gilbert]

In my experience, it seems that some winter squashes are passable as summer squashes when small, but very few summer squashes are passable as winter squash. Partially a matter of semantics, but partially not. What I'd really like is to be able to grow a row of zucchini, that produced heavily and had tender seeds and skins up to a baseball size, while growing a row of pepo squash nearby that produced high quality, five pound winter squash with high sugar content, fine textured flesh, fairly good keeping quality, and edible skins. And I'd like them to be the same landrace, so that I didn't have to isolate them and could keep a larger, more diverse population going.

I would also assume that winter squashes that are passable as summer squash don't produce immature fruit as prolifically and well as ones breed for summer squash production; just a guess, of course. I've never seen a winter squash set as many fruit at one time as my zucchini plants. They just seem very different.

About the change of attitudes; yes, that is a problem. But I'm mostly interested in feeding myself, so it doesn't matter as much.

About the "marrows;" I've grow several summer squash that made good marrows; we'd scrape the seeds out and peel them. But even though they were quite good, they certainly were not a good winter squash. And I really doubt they would have stored well at all.

The melon idea is mostly just for novelty.

An interesting related thought; summer squash, cucumbers, and green beans are a difficult case in selection. They can never be directly selected for the ability to crank out hundreds of immature fruits all year, at least in short season areas; once fruits are left to mature seed, they'll stop, no matter what they would have done. I suppose selection for yield would have to be done by family group selection.

I just realized that this is in the wrong subform; could it be moved into the squash section somehow?

[blueadzuki]

It seems like it might be possible. As you said there are melons that are used like cucumbers (not just the Armenian but ones like the Carosello of Italy). And some cucumbers develop a melon-ish smell and taste if they get fully mature (the crackly skinned kiva types of India and Southeast Asia come to mind). At the extreme end you have things like the Indian Dosaki where I am convinced there are some types that are true melons and some that are cucumbers; and no difference is made between them culinarily.

One thing though, based on the ones out there, you might have to abandon the long and thin requirement. Most of the "cucamelons" tend towards round, or at least fatter than many cucumbers. So, initially at least, one might have to be content with a melon that when young can be used as a "lemon" cuke.

[oxbowfarm]

I think rowan has the answer for you with the suggestion of cucuzzi type moschata. They are basically already the summer/winter squash combo you are looking for. Not a pepo, but moschatas have many superior agronomic characteristics over pepos generally anyway. It would just require selection for your favored phenotypes as far as size and texture I'd say.

With pepos, I think something like Long Pie is possibly closest to what you are describing, if you are insisting on having zucchini shaped "summer squash". Long Pie get easily in the five pound range. I've never seen a 5 pound Delicata, or a 3 pound Delicata.

[gilbert]

Rowan and Oxbowfarm: I've tried Tromboncino. It was impressively vigorous, but I didn't like it either as summer or winter squash. It was also very sprawling and viney, and didn't cover the ground very well. And when it went through the hedge, one of the bulbous headed, striped squash ended up dangling through, and the neighbor thought it was a giant snake!

It is interesting how tastes differ. I don't think I've ever eaten a finer squash than some of the small pepos, particularly some delecatas and acorns. On the other hand, moschatas are almost always decent, while many pepos are terrible. I've often wondered if this is because there are so many pepos grown as gourds, jack-o-lanterns, and summer squash.

I've also never found a squash as vigorous and productive as the Costata Romanesco zucchini, particularly in a bad year.

On the other hand, it might be nice just to abandon the pepo species all together, it is so hard to isolate. With maxima and moschata, I can be fairly sure that any neighboring squash is a winter eating type; not so with the pepos.

I'll do some thinking about this.

If I was to try doing it with a pepo, any thoughts on how one would go about making this landrace?

Why is it that the best pepos are small, while many fine maximas are quite large? Is that an unbreakable linkage of some sort?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

The pepos were domesticated twice. Once in Mesoamerica (pumpkins, marrows), and once in eastern north America (acorns, delicatas, crooknecks, scallops). The pumpkins are the larger-fruited sub-species.

I've been growing a dual purpose pepo squash the past few years: A courgette/mallow. It was well received at the farmer's market in both stages.

Last year, I started working on a delicata/acorn landrace. I'll make a point of tasting them as summer squash. I'm pretty sure that they can't taste any worse than a patty pan or zucchini.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I was planning this year to cross warty yellow crookedneck with a white acorn squash. I want a white warty crookedneck. I wasn't intending for a dual use squash, but who knows what would result.

[mskrieger]

I second blueadzuki's comment about the melony kiva-type cucumbers. I grow them as my preferred cucumber, because I like the complexity of flavor and they stay crisp and delicious even when over-mature on the vine (that is, when they have well developed seeds.) I have never tasted a sweet one, though. The melon flavors are in the flowery, fragrant realm, not so much sweet or spicy. I have been growing them side by side with my melons and have not observed a cross yet, so I'm assuming the two species are distinct. But I'll let you know if I notice something in the patch this year.