I'm starting a Moschata squash landrace this year.
I want to breed a landrace that has the aesthetic of Japanese Moschatas, but shorter time to maturity.
We have a short growing season here, last frost usually mid May and first frost mid September, although there have been heavy frosts as late as mid June and as early as 1st of September.
So the frost-free growing season is anywhere from 75 to 120 days. Not the prime area for Moschatas, especially Japanese varieties that need about 120 days to maturity.
What I've done is plant a bunch of Lofthouse medium Moschata landrace and a bunch of Japanese style varieties plus a couple of miscellaneous ones.
The full list is:
Lofthouse medium Moschata
Orange Sonca butternut (excellent taste supposedly)
South Anna Butternut (powdery mildew resistance)
Shishigatani
Yokohama
Chirimen
Futsu Kurokawa
Kikuza
Hayato
The middle row is Lofthouse, the outer rows are the rest.
Even though I planted Lofthouse squash 2 weeks later, it is quite a bit bigger and more vigorous.
I've not decided yet how to best proceed with pollination. Leave it to chance, do some manual pollinations, remove male flowers on Lofthouse or the other varieties.
Probably have to see how the flowering goes.
If there are male flowers on the longer season Japanese squash early enough, it would probably be best to pollinate the Lofthouse squash with them so I have more reliable seed maturation.
If all goes well, next year I would plant the seed all mixed up, let it open pollinate and see what comes out.