They’re growing, and the first flower buds are forming. Almost ready for the back crosses.
Most have the very lobed phenotype of lundelliana, such as the seedling on the left. A few have the more domestic look like the one on the right.
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Awesome! Have you tried eating the leaves yet? Are they bitter? & how would that bitterness of leaves translate into the fruits?
Also for Backcrosses, are you only introgressing it into C. ficifolia or do you want to get other Domesticated Cucurbita species involed too?
Have you tried mixing the pollens of Maxima, peop, moshchata, ficifolia, lundelliana all onto your lundelliana x ficifolia hybrid flowers? Imagine making 30 different crosses all carried inside just 1 fruit! Talk about being efficient AF am I right or no?
Yea the leaves are bitter like lundelliana. In the BC1 I should be able to cull out the bitter ones when little through taste.
You’re right, I should be introgressing other species at this point. I had a couple seedlings of x maximos but they got groundhogged, so will have to wait for another time.
One of things I was wondering, was Lundelliana even needed? I don’t have Cucurbita lundelliana but I do have all 5 species of domesticated squash. I’m convinced I can Mentor Pollinate & introgress all the offspring without C. lundelliana. That being said I still think it’s valuable to have lundelliana genetics as a stepping stone for Your project. I can still make it work without having C. lundelliana right?
Darn them Groundhogs! Don’t they understand we are doing breeding projects that could benefit them in the long end? So short sighted 
Reguardless, how do you protect your garden from groundhogs? Cage Trap?, Feed them Junkfood so they get fat & can’t walk? Build the wall & make the groundhog pay for it all 
?
Would bitter leaves help keep animals from eating them? I have a problem with deer eating squash plants.
That’s what I was thinking, Deer ate all my squash & squirrels dug out all the seeds. I bet the reason why wild populations even exist is because of that bitterness! However is it possible to get better leaves but non bitter fruit? It kind of feels like those are inseparable.
You can cross maxima, moschata, mixta together (depending on the cultivar). Maybe you can get a cross to pepo but it’s harder and that would be more likely with mixta. But you’re definitely not introgressing with ficifolia past the F1, it’s been tried over and over.
Mentor pollination only helps in being able to get the F1. The reason to use lundelliana is because it saves time and adds much vigor and resistances. In 2 seasons you can have a 50% pepo 25% moschata 25% lundelliana that’s already ready to go with decent fertility, beastly growth, and good flavor.
Bitter flavor only somewhat reduces leaf predation. It’s not worth having a bitter fruit. Anyway with enough vigor and space the plants don’t mind some leaf loss.
Wait dependent on cultivar? I was really convinced if it’s its a Cucurbita species it’s all crossable via Mentor Pollination! Especially reguardless of the Cultivar used.
Interesting… Based on a lot of the Cucurbita phylogenic Trees I’ve seen, Moschata & Angyrosperma are close, followed by pepo & with Maxima being most distant from Pepo, Moschata, Angyrosperma. Which makes sense morphologically as it’s easier to tell apart maxima from the pepo, moschata & angyrosperma. But it’s all mixed up anyways, as gene flow from all species likely contributed to each other.
I’ve read the same thing & wonder if the researches even tried mentor pollinaiton. I was planing on Crossing maxima x ficifola via mentor pollination. Next generation plant a pure maxima, a pure ficifolia & the f1 hybrid offspring all together so I could mix the pollens of all 3 plants & apply it to every female flower. That’s how I was planning on introgressing it, not backcrossing a maxima x ficifolia back to only 1 parent. I read Studies that have proven that this didn’t work (We’ve probably read the same studies too 
).
Exactly why a Bridge specimen is needed along with it’s parents. Mentor Pollinate the Hybrid Birdge offspring with both of it’s parents & Vice versa! Each generation gets further introgressed until there’s no hybridization barriers & It’s all just 1 species.
Go for it! I’m hoping your project goes well! Getting lundelliana genetics into an Edible Squash Landrace with the bitterness removed is awesome! What flavor do you think lundelliana can contribute?
Bitter flavor of the fruit or of the leaves? IS it possible to have SUPER BITTER leaves & fully non bitter fruits?
With enough vigor? Seriously just having the plants grow faster than the deer can eat them? That’s possible with squash!?
Was doing more research and I found this Phylogenic Tree that places Lundelliana & okeechobeensis closer to Cucurbita pepo. There’s also a Pepo subsp. ovifera right next to ecuadorensis? What’s going on there, did that cultivar actually pool genes from there? What do you make of it?
Also I take inspiration for an ancient introgression event in the example of Cucurbita pepo. Pepo consists of 2 subspecies Cucurbita pepo subsp. pepo & Cucurbita pepo subsp. texana or ovifera. Taking notes form this, My Maxima x Ficifolia landrace introgression could have the 2 subspecies situation when both maxima & ficifolia become 1 species! Imagine if I have all 5 domesticated Squash species cross & form a Landrace? It would be a 5 species introgression with 5 subspecies depending on how you want to look at it.
This kind of stuff makes me super curious with how my 5 species cucurbita landrace would fit within the Cucurbita Phylogenic tree? Makes me super excited to evolve the entire genus FURTHER! Imagine a Blue butternut form maxima traits, an Orange Ficifolia or the tree climbing vineyness but for buttercup x Acorn style squashes?
and then your amazing lundelliana project contribute some cool stuff too! Imagine getting delicious edible White Cucurbita Flowers? The wild okeechobeensis has white flowers.
A maxima x ficifolia landrace isn’t going to be easy to achieve but I hope you do it. Even the F1 will can require embryo rescue (though sometimes not). At the very least you should expect to grow huge numbers and bend over backwards to get past the F1, which again has been attempted by researchers and never achieved. Just plan on lots of work and encountering multiple barriers. Why don’t I just send you some F1 seed so you can cross maxima, etc. into them?
Make sure you temper your ideas with experiments, so they can fashion each other.
I love the phylogenetic studies as well but genetic distance is only one variable related to cross ability, for example okeechobeensis is close to lundelliana but doesn’t have the same crossing ability to the domestics.
Thank you! I hope to do it too with the eventual goal of all Interspecies Squash Hybrid Landrace.
Thankfully Squash seeds are easy to do embyro rescue with (Due to Large Seeds), However not being able to store the rescued seeds would be a problem if I don’t have a greenhouse & Lights to pump out a another generation in winter.
Have they mixed the pollens? Did they have both parent species present to smooth out the fertility issues of the F1 with mixing pollens? I’m thinking that’s why they didn’t have success.
That would be EPIC! Dm me
Agreed! I’m so eager to test out these theories, but deer eat everything I plant on land I don’t own.
Interesting, but how else will I get the white edible flowers trait into my Squash landrace? Also does the Purple color exist in Cucurbita? Does purple even exist in Citrullus or Cucumis? I’d love to make a Purple Skin Squash with Green Flesh inside, call it the Halloween Gothic Squash! What are all the colors that exist in Cucurbita & could a new color just spontanesouly appear with such wide Crosses I plan to do? I know Orange Cauliflower was a off chance mutation, so it shouldn’t be impossible with Cucurbita right?