Squash breeding project

[jmsieglaff]

Could have been a seed mix up or mislabeled plant if you bought plants.

I'm going to grill up some F1 tonight along side some Tatume!

[jmsieglaff]

Delicious! These are the F1 (yellow), Tatume (green), cocozelle (spears). Our favorite was the F1, we both preferred the thicker slices, I prefer most char, DW medium char. But they were all good. The key is picking young. They were seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and onion, finished with garlic chives.

Monty, Steve how are yours tasting and holding up to summer?

[jmsieglaff]

Another look at the plants as well as a maturing F1 that I will collected seeds from.

[Stvrob]

Mine were killed by heat/ humidity/foliar disease about the last week in July. I had one fruit that was nearly ripe, hoping it has viable seed. I will try for an earlier start next year.

[jmsieglaff]

Sounds like your projects are progressing nicely Monty!

Steve, good luck with the plants next year.

My plants have done wonderfully this summer and producing a ton of squash. Between the few plants I have, I am harvesting 2-4 squash a day. There has been some variability in the fruit shape/size/color among plants and even within plants. I've got 3 mature squash that are resting in the basement and I will harvest seeds for the F2 generation to be grown in 2016.

I've did a couple powdery mildew treatments from the recipe I got here on TV and that has worked nicely to keep it at bay. I've been pleased with the vine health, fruit production, flavor, etc. I was also pleasantly surprised not to lose any plants to SVB with as many eggs as I was picking off in late June-mid July.

Below are pictures of what the vines look like and the fruit I harvested last night.

[imp]

Those sure look impressive!

I like the climbing part- growing up can save a lot of space for the small gardeners. Great work guys.

[jmsieglaff]

My F1s produced tons of fruit, branched and rambled like crazy, climbed my trellis back and forth. The F1 fruits were often yellow, but many had green parts too, some at the fruit bottom, some at the fruit top and bottom--it varied from fruit to fruit on a given plant. I processed seed from my selfed F1s and that will serve as my F2 grow out source for 2016. I have a ton of F2 seed. In the F2 I will be selecting for climbing vines, yellow fruit color, production, and flavor. The plants did well vs. powdery mildew with some potassium carbonate treatment I found on the site here.

[luigiwu]

In that last picture of your garden, how many plants are we seeing there? Those yellow ones looks so promising? They look like the size of a tatume but do they have more of a summer zucchini flavor?

[jmsieglaff]

The color of the squash was interesting. Every F1 plant produced a variety of colors--on the same plant. I believe the environmental conditions influenced what genetic information was expressed outward. I don't know why or how but it is the only explanation. Most squash were yellow, although some had small green areas near the bottom. As the weather cooled a bit more and powdery mildew tried to set in some squash were yellow in the middle with green bottom and tops. On one plant that got powdery mildew the worst I had green squash with yellow dots.

The flavor between my plants was uniform, very good no bitterness. We harvested the last few 2 weeks ago before freezing weather set in. DW tried something new and we have a new recipe to mix in next year. Deseeded, chopped squash, brushed with some olive oil, coated with bread crumbs, freshly grated Parmesan and seasonings. Roasted in the oven. Very tasty and the LT actually took on a melt in your mouth creamy texture.

[jmsieglaff]

And from dinner the other night.

[jmsieglaff]

Originally Posted by luigiwu

In that last picture of your garden, how many plants are we seeing there? Those yellow ones looks so promising? They look like the size of a tatume but do they have more of a summer zucchini flavor?

Along the cattle panel there are 4 plants growing all over each other 1 Tatume and 3 LT F1. The flavor is kinda in between Lemon and Tatume. We enjoy them quite a bit. I'll select for Yellow in the F2, it will be interesting to see if shape and flavor have any correlation. I have plenty of F1 seed and F2 seed drying if you're interested.

We've tried them at various sizes. I like them best when I let them get a bit larger and then deseed. Unless I want to grill discs, then I prefer to pick them a bit smaller before the seeds start getting larger.

[jmsieglaff]

Steve are you going to grow the F1 again in 2016?

Monty, are you going to grow your LLT in 2016? Will that be F1? I'll be curious to see your results, I like your goal with back crossing to Lemon.

I'm looking forward to the segregation in the F2 in our garden in 2016. I've got a lot of F2 seed.

[Stvrob]

I hope to grow the F1 again this year, but I'm having difficulty finding the remainder of the seeds you sent me last year. The summer heat prevented me from getting any ripe seed from last years f1's, as I got a real late start last year.

[Stvrob]

Are you guys at it again with this squash this year? I just planted seed from the F1's I got from Justin last year.

[Stvrob]

Originally Posted by monty71466

Yes. Growing out a couple F2s from my premier F1 batch.

Good, I might have questions about which to select for F2, or other ideas which might be crazy.