Creating a Mochata Squash Landrace that is Vigorous, Productive, and Bug and Disease Resistant!

Mochata squash tend to be known as one of the more heat and disease resistant species of squash. I have high hopes for developing a landrace of them that will thrive here with our high heat, humidity, pests, and diseases.

Awesome I had high hopes for doing the same here in Central Texas. Well, I still have high hopes for future gardens, but this spring/ summer has been challenging, and very little is really thriving. We had very little rain in the spring, and it went from too cold to too hot way more quickly than it usually does. So no real spring. Now we are pretty solidly in the over 100 degree highs every day for the foreseeable future, with no rain in sight. I do water with drip lines, use mulch, compost, etc., but there is just no substitute for a nice, long, gentle rain. Luckily I should get another chance at a nice garden in the fall, when the weather cools down a little, and there is some hope we will get some good rains then.

I planted many varieties, but the one still doing well is, surprisingly, Musquee de Provence. One vine has made about 5 smallish mature squash, maybe 4-5 pounds each. Another that I planted just a few weeks later, among the corn, is only just really getting going now, but has made 2 or 3 very large squash, at least 20 pounds each, not quire mature yet, and is actively trying to take over the world, while setting more fruit. The Candy Roaster is also trying to set some fruit, but is struggling. The Honeynut (a baby version of butternut) set 3 adorable, tiny fruit early on, and then kicked the bucket. I will try that one again in the fall for sheer cuteness. My kids loved eating them! I got one squash from either the Seminole Sqaush or a regular Butternut Squash (I can't tell which) and then neither one did anything else. The other varieties did nothing. I have some Thai Kang Kob planted later in a partial shade spot, along with a few other Moschata varietes, and they are doing ok so far and have set a few tiny fruit.

I'll probably save seeds from the larger Musquee de Provence, and replant all varieties again in a month or so, and hopefully get a better fall crop, and save seeds from the best of that.

In better news, my okra and sunn hemp (which I feed to my goats) are both doing great and don't seem to mind the excessive heat, as long as they have water. Sweet potatoes, watermelon, and black-eyed peas are also doing well with plenty of watering. Some cherry tomatoes are doing well, and I will definitely be replanting seeds from those ones. I recently made the decision to stop watering the things that are just struggling too much, and try those again in the fall.

I'm having a lot of success so far with developing the mochata landrace. All of these vines seem to be very pest and disease resistant and moderately vigorous. They have produced these fruit during a period of no rain for 45 days and extreme heat averaging in the 90's and higher. I'm really excited to see how these turn out!

I'm hoping to offer some of these seeds this Fall if anyone is interested!

What generation are you up to in your breeding project Steve?

I'm just now getting some kabocha plants that survived leaf beetle onslaught I experienced the last two years. Hopefully I'll get some squash from at least one of the vines.

This is actually my first year of the landrace development.

I grew a lot of different varieties and tried to select ones to grow that were each high quality and also either grow well in a similar area to mine that can thrive in high heat and humidy or have high disease and pest resistance.

I'm really excited to see how the offspring will be next year! I have very high hopes for them as the current ones growing are all high quality and have grown well this year. I bet the offspring of these will be even stronger plants due to the combination of really good genetics since I've selected only the ones that are naturally drought tolerant with no watering, bug tolerant, disease tolerant, and that grow easily and vigorously.

the third season on a landrace like this seems to be the point where the magic really starts happening. not sure why.

i’m on…i think the sixth year for my moschata landrace, and there’s gonna be a lot of squash this year! steve, i wanted to recommend southeast asian pumpkin-shaped moschata squashes for an addition to your landrace, since i don’t think i’ve seen pics of them here. from what i’ve seen, they’re champs at shrugging off fungal diseases. they need a slightly longer season than some squash but a landrace is a great way to mix some of their genetics into shorter-season squash.

Thanks Greg, will definitely check them out! Great looking squash btw!

greg mosser wrote:
the third season on a landrace like this seems to be the point where the magic really starts happening. not sure why.

To my understanding the magic starts to happen in the third generation because of more genetic diversity really showing up then, and as a result of that, better adapted traits also reveal themselves and can then be further selected by the grower.

I like to think of it like this (the way simplified version and not exactly genetically correct)...

Most varieties today are super inbred so that they will look the exact same year after year, and are therefore generally homozygous (meaning that it has two of the same genes for a specific trait like color or vigor) and will pass these down to the offspring if they are crossed with each other, resulting in no new genetics showing up, which is why they look the same each year.

As a result of this very limited genetic information, it can be very difficult if not impossible for the plants to adapt well to a new area. For example let's say there is the Wongatutna squash (purely fictional, just thought the name sounded cool ). Like many varieties it has been inbred (just bred with others that look like itself) for over 20 years, and as a result has very little genetic diversity available to help it adapt if planted in a new area. It has actually gotten weaker over the years, even when grown in its original area, due to some possible genetic diversity being lost every year that it is further inbred. It was developed in the northern US and does pretty well there, but let's say that we live in the southern US. We see the nice shiny picture in the seed catalog in the Spring, and we order a packet. There is a very good chance that it would struggle in the Southern US because it doesn't have the available genetics to be able to adapt to the different diseases, pests, and climate there. So it cannot thrive without any inputs and dies shortly after sprouting.

With a true landrace there is hopefully a lot more genetic diversity, and there is hopefully some heterozygous (containing different genes for a trait) or at least different homozygous plants, and therefore much better at adapting. Let's say we grew the same squash mentioned above from the north but that it was a landrace. I'm guessing that it would still struggle in the South its first year, but that it may have at least a few plants that do well or even very well, or at least there are beneficial traits that show up in different plants, where those plants could be combined to create a super well adapted landrace for your area.

Let's look at how that could be accomplished.

Using simplified Mendelian genetics with capital letters representing dominant traits, let's say that we have two squash. One has a genotype of DDvv (disease susceptible and vigorous) and another is the opposite ddVV (disease resistant and not vigorous ). The capital D will represent a gene for being disease susceptible and the lower case d will be disease resistant. And similarly V will represent the non vigorous gene and v will be vigorous. Each offspring will get one gene from each parent. The capital letter will represent the dominant gene, and if it has one or two dominant genes the dominant gene is expressed, such as DD or Dd. The lower case letter represents the recessive gene, and for it to be expressed it has to have both be lower case such as dd.

These two plants meet in the garden one day through a mutual bumblebee friend, fall in love, and decide to start a family and make little squash plants.

Their kids get one gene (letter) from each parent and all look like this.

DdVv
DdVv

So because the parents are DDvv and ddVV, every single seedling will look the exact same. Whether there are 10 seeds or 100 seeds, they will all be DdVv. They all have one dominant gene for each trait which is expressed, so they all will be disease susceptible and non vigorous.

Why do all my plants look the same? Where is the diversity,? I thought I crossed the plants? Let's give them another year.

Next year the kids have kids which vary and look like this. There are more in number of some (the hybrids) than others, but just for simplicity, here's the different possible kids.

DDVV
DdVV
ddVV
DDVv
DdVv
ddVv
DDvv
Ddvv
ddvv

So now in the third year we get all of the options expressed. Based on the genes we finally have some (the last in the list) that show up as both disease resistant and vigorous. We like how some of them taste and save their seeds, and repeat year after year, and eventually our landrace is selected to be generally disease resistant, vigorous, and delicious!

This example isn't exactly accurate since I'm pretty sure vigorousness is usually dominant and some gene expressions aren't simple dominant and recessive, but rather exist on a spectrum. But hopefully it is helpful in describing the "magic" of the third year!

Hey Steve, that last comment of yours (DdVv, etc.) is super fascinating! This is actually the first I've read and understood anything about breeding new varieties of plants. Thank you for sharing! 😊😊

My moschata landrace project is not off to a great start. I didn't notice any damage from vine borers, but the squash bugs were literally covering every leaf. Out of thirty plants of probably 10 mixed varieties of moschatas, I got two fruits. One was beginning to rot so I opened it to find the seeds were still immature. The other one I will store as long as possible then save seeds from it. I hope to acquire some tropical Thai varieties this winter and will replant any seeds I can salvage along with these and the most pest resistant varieties I already have, such as Seminole and Cherokee Tan.

I was actually shocked at the intensity of the squash bug infestation because this is the first time I've planted squash in a garden spot only two years old that to my knowledge has not had any squash grown nearby for many years. Since I made no effort to control the squash bugs, I'm afraid that the dense overwintering population will lead to an even earlier and worse infestation next year.

Serious question: Does anyone know how Native Americans traditionally dealt with squash bugs? I haven't been able to find any info about this.

Hello, Steve.  Would love to test some of your seed here in dry, hot Utah.  This year I purchased several moschata varieties from Baker Creek and planted them in a sunny area of sandy loam amended with some homemade compost.  It was watered a couple times per week (we had a much hotter summer than usual, with more than 30 days of triple-digit temperatures).  The harvest was unimpressive - very few, mostly small fruits.  I plan to save the seed from all of them and plant them out next year.  Adding some of your seeds will likely help the overall population genetics.  Thanks.

john Harper wrote: Does anyone know how Native Americans traditionally dealt with squash bugs? I haven't been able to find any info about this.

I bet they bred for natural squash bug resistance. I'm trying to do the same thing.

I noticed that the more organic matter and healthier the soil was, it helped give the plants more reaiatance as well.

Debbie Ang wrote:Hello, Steve.  Would love to test some of your seed here in dry, hot Utah.  This year I purchased several moschata varieties from Baker Creek and planted them in a sunny area of sandy loam amended with some homemade compost.  It was watered a couple times per week (we had a much hotter summer than usual, with more than 30 days of triple-digit temperatures).  The harvest was unimpressive - very few, mostly small fruits.  I plan to save the seed from all of them and plant them out next year.  Adding some of your seeds will likely help the overall population genetics.  Thanks.

Thanks Debbie, I hopefully plan to start offering them next Spring!

I've been saving my own butternut seed (Waltham) for almost 15 years, last year was the first time I allowed some crossing. Commenting here to stay informed on your endeavors.