My all-time favorite winter squash is kabocha (C. maxima): I love sweet, dense, dry squash. I currently live in SE US, with very hot, humid summers, and C. moschata types are recommended here. This year, South Anna butternut did very well, I harvested 20+ squash from three plants. Unfortunately... butternut isn't my favorite kind of squash. Is anyone aware of any C. moschata squash that are closer to a kabocha in flavor?
Joseph had a further generation or two from it available last year. I planted too late and didn't get any seed back unless it was the pollen source or mostly maxima.
You could launch a bit of a breeding project using the hybrid and your favorite.
Western Montana gardener and botanist in zone 6a according to 2012 zone update.
Gardening on lakebed sediments with 7 inch silty clay loam topsoil, 7 inch clay accumulation layer underneath, have added sand in places.
I've been breeding local butternut with kabucha for years, it is my favourite hobby. Also with another local hybrid "boerpampoen". The trick is to bring the kabucha through the first year and get their flowers near your other breeds. The second year you can let the crossbreeds set fruit from each other, and then after that be sure to reintroduce kabucha every second year and your local hybrid every second year, especially if you have less than fifty plants. In other words keep breeding back and forwards, saving seed from only those plants that you like. I am aiming for a plant with the hard outer shell of the butternut, the storage qualities of a boer and the incomparable flavour of the kabocha. What I am getting is a peculiarly local creamy flavour with the dryness of kabucha and the sweetness of butternut.
I order seed from Kitazawa and their seed is excellent.
To bring my kabochas through their first year I plant them at the foot of a wormfarm in 1 m deep sunken hugelbeds. If I can I will also mulch regularly to keep their feet damp, this year it has been so humid that they are getting a bit mildewy instead. I don't treat, just making sure there is plenty of air circulation because I believe in tough love. No matter, after all the only thing i have to do is to get them to produce male flowers that either I or the bees can cross pollinate from. Usually I will get a couple of fruits a year even from first generation kabuchas, the flavour of which is enough to keep me breeding.
The Japanese indeed are expert plant breeders and the more of their plants I grow the more I become aware of how species are bred to fit into a plant ecology and human ecosystem. I have been much inspired by Joseph Lofthouse's experiments and am encouraged to try tomatoes next.
kabucha1.jpg
kabucha outside my bedroom window in a guild with tomato, sunflower and gladioli. The system is set up so that one bucket of water a day in the wormfarm keeps it all hydrated and fertilized
kabucha2.jpg
one fruit! Now I will mulch under it with wormwood because the songololos love to eat their way through the soft shell
kabucha3.jpg
hybrid fruit
kabucha4.jpg
Baby Delicia on compostheap with hybrid running around the edges. This bed gets trickle irrigated about once a week
Whoa, you guys, I never even thought to wonder if there were any hybrids out there... that's exciting news. Thanks so much. I have no experience in plant breeding, but this is intriguing.
Thanks for sharing your beautiful photos, Natasha!
.png)
3
