How much distance between squash families ?

[synergy]

I am trying to plan to space out some plantings and would like advice as I am not so bright at this ; I like zucchini and small pumpkins, spaghetti squash and have intent to grow some red kobuchi squash to try it and styrian pumpkins for seed . Dang to complicate it I would like to grow cucumbers too , will they cross pollinate with zucchini ?

I would like some tasty squash that keeps in winter and is not too big nor hard to cut if anyone has suggestions as well ?

Also I was planning to plant some squash in my orchard that gets south sun, could I add wheelbarrows of goat manure and spent hay now and plant squash starts in that in say 3 months ?

[DarJones]

Divide by species. C. Pepo, C. Maxima, C. Moschata, and C. Mixta cover just about everything we normally grow. Zucchini, crookneck, and styrian are all C. Pepo and will readily cross. Cucumber does NOT cross with any of the pumpkin family nor does cucumber cross with cantaloupe contrary to what a lot of older gardeners will tell

As a general rule, you can't grow C. Pepo squash varieties within 1/4 mile of another C. Pepo without getting some crossing. Full isolation for commercial seed production requires 2 miles. You can always take the approach of hand pollinating a few flowers for seed.

[xdrix]

Hello,

It existed 6 domestics species of squash

                                                  

cucurbita maxima	squash,red kury
cucurbita moschata	butternut other squash
cucurbita pepo	zuchini,pumpkin,acorn,spaguetti squash
cucumis melo	melon
cucumis sativus	cucumber,pickle
citrulus lunatus	watermelon

In normal time a species woud to hybrided with a variety of the same species.

It existed a few exceptions

cucurbita maxima has 40% of luck to  hybridize with cucurbita moschata,less % in the other sens.

there is an example of interspecific crossbreeding between futsu kurokawa and green delicious www.kcb-samen.ch/product.php?products_id=910532&language=en

the interspecific cross breeding is used for the grafting of melon,cucumber and pickle or they are very vigorous but generaly male sterile

cucurbita pepo is able to hybridize with cucurbita moschata but its rare.

cuburbita mixta a wild species is more compatible than the domestics species for the interspecific cross

for recognize the species you can see here www.kcb-samen.ch/?language=en

Sometimes the fruit can accepted to get fat without seeds or less than a fruit or pure species with a distant mâle pollen.

[synergy]

This information is helping me understand . Thank you !

[jocelyn]

You can always tie some yarn around both the male and female flowers that you want to use for parents the night before they open. Untie, cross, and re tie the female. I usually just pick the tied male and untie it when I'm at the female and use it like a paint brush to coat the frilly bit in the middle of the female. If had them both tied, the bees won't raid the male's pollen, and the female won't get other pollen besides what you used. Once the bloom fades, you can transfer the yarn to a loose tie around the stem of the pollinated baby fruit.
You don't need any isolation distance if you do that....just yarn, grin.

[jocelyn]

It doesn't have to be fancy, feed bag string from your pocket will do.

[flowerbug]

the bees won't chew through that?

[xdrix]

For the polinisation, the bees did a better work than me! The fruits that i polinisatted manualy are often more little than the fruits polinisated by the bees.

The pollen who germinate in first is often the most compatible.

[flowerbug]

yes, they rattle around a lot in those flowers.

[steev]

You should see 4-6 of them WALLOWING in cardoon flowers, they love them so.

[synergy]

Okay I am going to try to grow some squash or summer eating and some for keeping fall into winter. I am still trying to narrow it down . None of my friends would grow a different variety and trade so we could save seed . They said who cares about saving seed . I am a little concerned if we don't start saving some seed , we will continuously be vulnerable for the basic genetics of our food supply .

[steev]

Seed-saving is more important with covid; far more people are gardening and the seed industry is swamped by unprecedented demand.

[xdrix]

The seeds recuperate are more adapted than the new seeds.
Avoid the autofecondation for the mosts sensitives plants.

[zeedman]

My 2 c's:

If you do not intend to save seed, the kinds of squash or cucumbers you grow & their proximity does not matter. Cross-pollination will not affect the form or flavor of any squash or cucumber grown this year.

If you do intend to save seed:
(1) the blossoms which will open the next day must be tied (as illustrated by Jocelyn), bagged, or taped the day before to keep out bees. This applies to both male & female blossoms, at least one of each per variety. Those flowers are opened in the morning, quickly hand pollinated, then the female blossoms re-closed to prevent any further pollination. Place a string, twist-tie or some type of marker around the stem of the pollinated female flower, to identify it for seed saving.
(2) to save seed which will be the same as what you grew, the variety must be open pollinated. All "heirlooms" are open pollinated (OP). You can save seeds from hybrids too; but their seed will produce unpredictable results, some of which might be unpalatable. If you have limited space, or don't want to experiment, then you should only save seed from OP varieties. Hybrid seed must be labeled as hybrid, and may have "F1" after the variety name.

[xdrix]

If you autofecondated an hybrid AB,you will get of hybrid AA or BB or AB the last generation
A x B= AB
In my exemple AA and BB are the allele.
The squash is diploïd and she have two alleles of twenty chromosome.