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Spaghetti Squash x pumpkin x zucchini project

Lauren Ritz

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posted 4 years ago

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A few years ago I crossed a pie pumpkin and a zucchini with a spaghetti squash.

I hadn't been able to get any spaghetti squash to produce and I think I had maybe five seeds left. So I planted them and got one survivor, from which came my current spaghetti squash seeds and one deliberate cross.

Last year my survivors were one zucchetti plant (striped like the zucchini), one pumpetti plant (round and orange but with the taste of the spaghetti squash), and one spaghetti squash. The spaghetti squash never got any fruit on it and died from squash bug attack.

I kept seeds from both. They may have crossed with each other, or with the spaghetti squash.

This spring I planted these seeds in early April and nearly all of them died. One survivor handled several freezes, heat and high UV, lack of water, and I just harvested the first zucchetti. It currently has more female blossoms, which is why I harvested now. The skins are hard and the squash changing color.

Six more were planted later in the season and are just flowering. Two spaghetti squash were also planted in the patch.

This year I'll be removing all the male flowers from the spaghetti squash so they have to cross pollinate with the crosses. I'm looking for a drought and cold tolerant spaghetti squash with the continuous production of the zucchini and the ability to keep over the winter.

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J Youngman

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posted 4 years ago

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Sounds like you got lucky only having one survivor twice in a row! Very interesting project.

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Lauren Ritz

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posted 4 years ago

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The one survivor the first time was the last of the packet--I have a rule for myself that if I don't get seeds from something by the time I run out, I don't plant that thing again. So I babied the heck out of it, which I normally don't do.

This year I planted the first time in early April (average last frost date is May 15) so I didn't expect any of them to survive. That one did is amazing, and I'll take it!

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Lauren Ritz

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posted 4 years ago

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I opened up the first of the zucchetti. We had it for lunch. The second is in storage to see how long it lasts.

The skin was incredibly hard, similar to the full sized seed zucchini, which I need to break open with a sledge hammer or on the cement steps. The flesh was green instead of orange or yellow, but still did the spaghetti squash thing. Most strands were an inch or two long, but they were there. The taste was slightly stronger than zucchini but different from both parents.

So in this one plant, after two generations I have the production of the zucchini (4 more currently on the plant, and more female blossoms coming), the quick ripening of the spaghetti squash, the flesh of the spaghetti squash, and some level of cold tolerance.

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Lauren Ritz

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posted 4 years ago

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8 new zucchetti ripening on the one plant and more coming. I'll remove all as they start to turn orange so hopefully get even more this season. Picking early I won't get as many seeds, so it's a risk, but I think worth it if I can gauge the productivity of the plant. The first zucchetti from July is still sitting on the shelf and showing no signs of rotting.

The pure spaghetti squash have female blossoms so I'm starting to remove the male flowers to ensure cross pollination. There is a blooming pumpkin about 20 feet away and I'm trying to decide if I'm going to remove those male blossoms as well. No female blossoms there yet, so nothing is lost either way.

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kadence blevins

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posted 4 years ago

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Interesting!

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Lauren Ritz

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I have 9 (?) zucchetti in storage. There are actually two plants there, one with a larger fruit shaped more like a zucchini and the 2nd with the smaller rounded fruit. The zucchini type is softening in storage already, so in that sense the traits are reversed. We're eating the smaller fruit like zucchini as they come on.

The pure spaghetti squash has three fruit on it--one open pollinated, one hand pollinated with all the zucchetti plants, and one pure spaghetti squash. The "pure" seeds will be put in storage after this year.

One of the plants turned out to be a yellow squash cross of some kind. It would have the spaghetti squash genes and either pumpkin or zucchini as well as this other thing. I don't plant yellow squash, so it must have been pollen from somewhere else. Considering the short duration of the project, the cross has to have happened last year.

The "gourd" shape doesn't fit in this project, so I'm not sure whether it's worth it to keep seeds.

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Dan Fish

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posted 4 years ago

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EXCELLENT write up and follow through. Thanks Lauren! I love these types of threads.

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Rebecca Norman

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posted 4 years ago

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Wow, this is a great project, and I'll be watching with interest.

Are your zuccheti plants bushes like zucchini, or sprawling like most other plants in that family?

I think that warty yellow gourdy thing looks dubious. I've read that zucchini, spaghetti squash, delicata, some orange (but not all) but not very tasty pumpkins, and ornamental gourds are all the same species, C. pepo. All the others are edible and their crosses are usually edible, but if crosses involve an ornamental gourd they can be bitter and actually toxic. For that reason (and because they don't interest me) I've decided to make sure not to grow any of those ornamental C. pepo gourds. So you might want to make sure that yellow warty fruited plant gets no male flowers and can't pollinize any of the other zucchetis etc.

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Lauren Ritz

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posted 4 years ago

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I won't be keeping seeds from anything pollinated at this point--I don't want to encourage late production. Those I will be keeping for seed were mostly pollinated by hand.

When blossoms first started appearing earlier in the season I looked at this one and the female fruit looked very similar to the zucchetti. I thought it WAS a zucchetti, or I might have culled it.

It looks a lot like a straight-neck yellow summer squash that's been allowed to go to seed. We'll see. If it's bitter I won't keep seeds from it. There are a number of ornamental gourds across all the squash families.

My "traditional" zucchini is a semi-bush. Toward the beginning of the season it's a bush form, then it sprawls out and takes over. The high production zucchetti seem to have this same habit. The two "vining" zucchetti have only produced two fruits each for the season, so won't be kept for seed.

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Lauren Ritz

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Location: Kansas

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posted 4 years ago

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The two that I thought were spaghetti squash turned out to be pumpetti. Still two spaghetti squash plants, but they're just barely getting male blossoms so probably not time for anything to mature.

IMG_20210919_104336326.jpg

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Lauren Ritz

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Location: Kansas

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posted 4 years ago

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The spag x yellow was rotting (touching a zucchetti that had rotted from the inside) so I opened it up and cooked it.

The flavor was different from the zucchetti but it had green flesh so probably spag x zuc x yellow.

It had spaghetti strings, longer than the zucchetti I opened up earlier in the season but thinner, more like angel hair pasta. Not bitter at all. Quite good. After eating these I notice that normal zucchini has no flavor. If we can breed back toward the rounded shape this might be an interesting addition to the project. It may have contributed pollen, but with only one fruit for the season I'm not putting the seeds in the project bottle. Two strikes; shape, and low production.

Three of the squash have been lost to rot, but two were infected by the third. That one looks like it rotted from the inside, so probably damage to the stem area. Not a winter keeper, so I'm not keeping seeds even though it was the first of the season.

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posted 4 years ago

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Lauren- a ranch friend who for decades has gardened outside of Denton Texas, had us sample an unknown winter squash cross she had seed saved (probably for years) from her autumn 2020 garden and gifted a large sqush to us last December. It has skin with undertones/faint stripes almost like a zucchini was in its heritage; size/shape like banana squash with yellow & faint pink blush hard skin. The flesh is yellow, smooth, watery and bland (bland like spaghetti squash but NO strings.)
We baked our gifted squash last week - this squash stored for 12 months at temps 68-85F no direct sun without deteriorating from time of harvest/cure.

Would you like the seeds to play with for further crossing? (I had tossed them all saying the squash had no flavor, when my good husband remarked that a squash that can store for 12 months in Texas is worth preserving! I dug the seeds out of the garbage and cleaned them.)
I have about 35 seeds. Let me know if you're interested - or anyone else on the forum who might like a few seeds to try.

Happy Gardening!
BeckyWTX

Lauren Ritz

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posted 4 years ago

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Becky, I note that your account is already gone. If you have created a new account, or whatever, I am definitely interested in those seeds. Winter squash are usually Maxima, so chances are low that there are any zucchini genes, but I am interested in doing a winter squash landrace.

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Lauren Ritz

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posted 4 years ago

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A question for anyone who is doing landrace breeding.

I have been eating the squash in this population that rotted or otherwise started to deteriorate. Most are still good.

I opened one last week that had started to wither, primarily because it was right next to a dehydrator and I didn't notice. It was one of the earliest to ripen (August), so I was going to keep seeds, but it appears that the majority of the seeds had sprouted inside the squash. Again, probably because of the heat.

Should I keep seeds from it anyway? Not sure I want to encourage this behavior, but it was one of the earliest and it's lasted until January...

Is Joseph Lofthouse still around?

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Jan White

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posted 4 years ago

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Lauren Ritz wrote:

Should I keep seeds from it anyway?

This is one of those things I struggle with, too. This year I've gotten really strict about not saving seeds from squash that start rotting. I used to waffle a bit if the squash was super tasty or something. I don't have a good place to store squash. Right now they're sitting in a bin that we have to move every time we need to get into the linen drawer or water plants. Our house is tiny. It's also too hot for ideal squash storage. So I've decided I need to put more emphasis on storage ability adapted to our less than ideal conditions. There's no point in having amazing squash if you have to stress over gobbling them up before they rot.

I actually just heaved one that had a bad spot in the compost yesterday. I didn't even cook the good portion, like I usually would, so that I wouldn't be tempted to save seed if it turned out to be the most delicious squash I've ever grown.

If you really need the early ripening genes, maybe. If you have the ability to isolate, maybe grow those seeds separately from your others and see if you get more early ones. Then you can evaluate how they store next winter and if they're worth keeping in the gene pool long term.

Lauren Ritz

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Location: Kansas

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posted 4 years ago

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This is my f3 generation. I've been keeping seeds for the "bad" squash in a bottle marked seconds, which I can default to if it becomes necessary, as the best squash do not always produce reliably or produce the same traits in later generations. It was marked August, and I might have forgiven the deterioration considering the amount of heat it was getting. It's the sprouting inside that has me squirming.

My seed saver brain is currently locked in a closet, but she seems to be getting out a battering ram.

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Joseph Lofthouse

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posted 4 years ago

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Basically, you get what you select for, even if the selection is inadvertent.

A pepo squash that stores from August to January seems like a keeper as long at the taste and other traits are acceptable. The seeds in it that didn't sprout, are the most resistant to sprouting when stored next to a warm radiator. I used to store pepo winter squash from harvest day in September, until planting day on June 5th. On that day, I would open the squash, and plant the seeds.

I also tend to keep a seed jar of seconds. Or more specifically, I put the best of the best in a plastic bag, inside the jar containing the bulk seed.

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Lauren Ritz

pollinator

Posts: 890

Location: Kansas

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posted 4 years ago

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I still have four zucchetti that ripened in August, one in July, and three pumpetti that ripened in early September. All of them are still good. I haven't kept seeds from any of the zucchetti that ripened after August, and in fact started eating them as zucchini. I also am not keeping seeds for the pumpetti that ripened after the beginning of September, or the squash that started to mold.

Heat resistant is a good trait in this area. I plant everything in the cold anyway, so I'm already selecting for cold tolerance.

I wish I could get the production of the zucchetti into the pumpetti population.

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