We cant access the orange fleshed cucumber for now…is there any other variety that boasts more nutrient density? Or a close relative on the phylogenetic tree that is in some one’s seed collection, that could be available for grow outs? We just need input from growers who save seeds. How would we approach getting all supportive growers to share seed…some heirloom growers do not pursue genetic diversity. Should we mix everything, just heirlooms, sprinkle in some wild varieties. But using the phylogenetic tree as a guide. Not to be specific like a research project, but organize a way forward. Research project sort out a few traits and rarly take on a synergistic input mix. But for growing purposes its seed mixes and synergies of pollen mixing and pollination success. For example, I’ve grown edible flowers for a few years and by keeping blooms continuously over a period of time, pollinators visit my garden and the seasonal vegetable plants benifit by getting pollinated. A grower in a more hospitable growing zone may be next to a medow with wild flowers and already have visiting polinators. Growing companion plants together with vegetable plants helps considerably too.
well I just wasn’t sure what to reply with, Formal letter to Director, NBPGR? And we need permission form NBA if not indian.
Yes there is, Grin has some Wild species of Cucumbers that cross (Like Cucumis hystrix)! Problem is the wild species are often bitter? Are we willing to breed out the bitterness (Which is thankfully easy to taste). I remember lofthouse tried some wild melons & he had to trow away a whole years worth of seeds because the bitter gene somehow got in. I would’ve just isolated the patch & make a separate breeding project (If I have plenty of land).
I’m also just realizing, maybe Cucumis stativus has such a hard to time crossing with other Cucumis species because Chromosomes numbers mismatch. Cucurbitaceae has a harder time doubling chromosome numbers to fix this issue, Brassicaceae family just doubles it, finds a way.
Look at this, all the Cucumis species have n=12 but Cucumber Cucumis sativus has n=7? What is going on? How does Cucumis sativus x Cucumis hystrix work with mis-matching Chromosome numbers?
Even Cucumis metuliferus x Cucumis melo works & can make fertile hybrid offspring which is a wider cross!? Maybe something happend to Cucumis sativus during domestication where a Chromosome number got reduced? Maybe we should use Cucumis hystrix as a bridge species between Cucumber & Melon? Cucumis hystrix is n=12, same with Melon, Kiwano & nearly all the other Cucumis species, so maybe Cucumis hystrix x Cucumis melo can bring the Orange Flesh Trait into Cucumis sativus? If so why can’t we graft Cucumis melo & Cucumis sativus together & have Cucumis hystrix be the internode to facilitate Horizontal Gene Flow?
Your questions are great questions, making me realize new insights!
I have Cucumis metuliferus & Cucumis anguria. Maybe if someone is growing Cucumis hystrix or we can request seeds from GRIN. Other relatives may work but it’s weird how Cucumis sativus x Cucumis hystrix works despite being Mis-Matching Chromosome numbers. I’m gonna have to research more.
You can’t force a horse to drink but you can bring them to the water. It’s ultimately their choice if they want to pursue or not. Not to worry, there’s plenty of folks who want to persue genetic diversity (Most of them are on these forums anyways).
We could, or we could also generate Cucumis metuliferus x Cucumis melo hybrids! Man… I really want to get Land so I can make these crosses & get those seeds into other gardeners via GTS.
The only thing with wild species is they may have bitter genes that people don’t want to play around with. I have taste buds so I can weed them out but not everyone has this confidence or wants to taste test bitter fruit.
Fantastic! That’s a great way to encourage off-sync flowers to hybridize. Sometimes the only hybridization barrier is mis-matching flowering schedules (Like with Corns or Raspberries). If you can delay the flowering of 1, you may get flowering to sync up. With Brassicas, simply pruning/eating off the flowers can be enough.
oh wait… you mean encourage pollinators in hopes they also pollinate your vegetables? More pollinators are great but depending on the species you can get away with how closely planted they are just fine too (Or if you hand pollinate).
That’s the thing I’ve always wondered, since every edible vegetable produces a flower if you let it go to seed, why can’t your pollinator flowers be edible too? Surely Squash attracts pollinators to your Beans, and Brassicas to your Carrots, Clovers to your Melons, Dandelions to your Radishes, so on & So on. I’ve seen Bees go bonkerz for Squash, they LOVE squash flowers but Bee Balm/Car Tires Mint (Monarda spp.) they’re even more crazy for. Literally had a Bee just sit on the flower, relaxed to the point I could rub it’s fuzzy little belly with it stinging me 
. It’s almost like Narcos for them.
You would have to identify as a freelance gardener…not associated with GTS. OR maybe team up with a botanist in your area who is currently conducting research on cucumbers and be a research volunteer or a student. IDK, what is required to collaborate officially. Besides phyto inspection or permit there may be specific import criteria as well. May be a career field worth joining. And distribution of the seed even to grow may have conditions…im sure every step has to be documented, IDK what the international rules are for rare seed, especially if it has research value. Surely, there is a wild cultivar available somewhere…but Im wondering if the flesh color is due to a cross with a wild relative in the area where its found.
No bitter cucumbers please, unless that is the history of origin…bitter bred to be sweet?
Im not getting to deeply into chromosome or alleles because unless its linked to flavor or nutrient density…im not getting that far into the science.
Im happy for multiple species of pollinators to visit the garden, thats why I keep a variety of blooms available.
Did you get good at phylogenetic study from a hobby perspective or did you study at a university? Just thinking if so, as an alumni you’d still be able to contact faculty for direction on research.
So, im searching older agricultural yearbooks to see what direction they go in for cucumber crosses. Flavor and nutrition weren’t the focus, but some one has to be on the path of breeding and research thats published. Maybe from a historic perspective we could see the full path the fruits have taken. Two international seed company offices here…ill see if i can ask someone about research…
Grafting? Stems together or flower parts? It seems the vine isn’t holding genetic material like root stock or scions do…but im guessing, my plant genetics is real rusty. I would think the pollination and sexual production of seeds is really where the focus would be…so traits are stronger thru intended life channels. But then there would have to be extensive seed trials. Science is tedious to me in that way, I really like the simple version of just growing and selecting for what you like, as in Joseph’s book.
That’s what I was thinking, If I recall correctly, the Orange color came from a Mutation. It always makes me wonder if Cucumis melo had any play in the result, maybe that orange-flesh trait was somehow transfered horizontally?
Yes Exactly! At first seeds were selected because they weren’t bitter until, selection after selection a Mutation occured that was non-bitter for the flesh too. Eventually selection after selection, a mutation for sweet gene emerged from Persia (Modern Day Iran). That’s the history for Melons Cucumis melo, a similar thing happend to Cucumis sativus altho bitterness was apparently tolerated more? Still have to look into to, but eventually Loss of bitterness happend.
I was also thinking the exact same thing, especially when plants just figured it out somehow on their own. It almost felt like the plants didn’t worry so much about chromosome numbers. I’ve noticed Brassicaceae & Rosaceae Family in particularly easily finds a way around mis-matching chromosome numbers.
Apparently most of our crops are tetraploids, often it’s evidence of some domestication! If I recall correctly, Both Quinoa got huge seeds (Even when neither parent had huge seeds) & Potatoes got huge tubers because of Chromosome doubling.
Perhaps traits that never existed before from either parent can be created/mutated by Chromosome doubling.
For fun, pure hobby & dedication! All my research started because I wanted to Eat Better food. I started Foraging because I had no land, eventually I took the research attitude (Plant ID so I don’t eat a Plant I shouldn’t) & put it into Gardening/Permaculture. I figured if I Forage these plants, why shouldn’t I garden them too? Eventually I found Landrace Gardening Thru YouTube & this forums. Through GTS discussions, I learned about Phylogenic Trees & my perspective flipped on how I understood Plant ID, Plant Breeding, Genetics, Species, ect.
I did go to College but dropped out because they weren’t teaching exactly what I wanted to learn, How to grow food, plus some info was outdated 
.
It’s exactly like training a muscle, the more I Researched, the more I got better at Researching. Since I had zero land & a CRAP TON of Passion/dedication/drive, I poured all that effort into Researching because it was the only avenue I had available to continue the goal of better food! Might as well learn all I can so I can hit the floor running when I do get land.
That’s one of things I was thinking off, maybe I shouldn’t have dropped out so quickly but then remembering again, they also forced the Covid shot on those who want to continue going to College so I was forced to drop out.
Go for it! I know the more we keep knocking, the more closer we get to eventually finding what we were looking for!
Yes Grafting Stems to facilitate gene flow between crops. It’s how “Graft hybrids” happen.
I learned this from Russian Plant Breeder Ivan Michurin, he’s been doing Both Mentor Grafting & Mentor Pollination to create incredible wide crosses. Mentor Grafting is a way to facilitate Horizontal Gene Flow (It isn’t the only way, but is very effective). Modern Chinese Scientist has proven his methods work, we are just know starting to accept this, Michurin was ahead of his time. @Ascentropic Understands this well, hopefully he can chip in & share his input.
Here are my notes (Feel free to ask me or @Ascentropic any questions/clarifications)
Indeed! But grafting can actually influence the seeds inside the young scion 
. That’s what makes it so incredible! The effect is more noticeable with Young Hybrid Scion. You can use grafting to essentially mentor the genetics towards the mentor plant you want it to resemble.
Grafting is combined with Sexual Reproduction (aka Normal Pollination on Grafted Scions).
Don’t worry about it, Plant breeding can be as simple as you want it to be (Lofthouse’s Book Simplified a lot!). You can still be just as successful without these “Out-Side the Box Methods”. Plus since we are all collaborators, we can do the complicated stuff & generate wide hybrid seeds for you to play with, that’s what’s beautiful about everyone working together, each Plant breeder/Seed Saver has their own unique way of selecting! Thus each breeder’s landrace is unique! Crossing each other’s uniqueness generates even more amazing combos!
It’s not different how we Cross-Pollinate Ideas, like right now! I’ve learned a lot from you & GTS, I’m truly blessed to be a part of this Community!
Yes, its ok to collaborate with technology and technologies to get crosses to successful seed development. I just prefer living soils with microbial activities supporting earthworms and a biome of multiple species. Companion plants, trees, multiple polinators and sunshine. Leaving out chemical treatments that direct flower development or any growth due to chemical engineering. Songbirds too, they move so many seeds around in a bioregion if given a living space. True wild seeds would have all the interactions with its space of origin, birds, animals, insects, microbes and its a soup of ingredients. I want to continue to understand those relationships and how the seeds are influenced. But still small scale, and local with small steps.
Do share the Muchurin research since its focused on pollenation activities. And share it so its print ready…its ok to laugh, I still print what I can to save a paper hard copy…lol
Yea I also prefer not to work with those kinds of things (Unless Strictly Neccesary, which is very rare). It’s why I like Mentor Grafting & Mentor Pollination, no Chemicals involved or Crazy Lab Equipment Needed.
Me too! It’s interesting seeing What Nature Selects for vs what a Plant Breeder Selects for. If you think of Nature as a Plant Breeder, you can observe traits she selects for. Plant Breeding is very much Symbiosis. Your Personality gets imprinted into a Landrace just like how your soil/enviroment imprints the landrace too!
I always like to look to wild relatives of a Crop Species & see what their strategy is to survive in my Climate.
Will do! Nothing lol about it, Printing is very smart for whenever the power goes out! Just keep your prints organized like you do in digital media. Ideally it’s best to back up your notes Physically on Paper & Digitally on Computers, Old Smartphones (Kept for the express purpose of Notes/Books, stored in a Metal Box/Aluminum Foil encase of an EMP Attack) & on Harddrives or whatever else you got.
Sharing Notes online is also another way to Back up Notes. YouTube Allows you to upload as many videos as you want privately, you can literally treat YouTube as a Cloud Storage, store as many videos as you want there.
Just a thought: I’m pretty sure shipova is infertile. At least, these guys seem to think so:
It can be cloned, and it can fruit without making fertile seeds, so that’s all right. But it does point towards Rosaceae integeneric fertile crosses quite possibly being difficult to obtain.
Do you have a helianthus phylogenetic tree?
Very interesting, there could be multiple reasons why Shipova seeds fail to germinate or grow.
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Which Tree Pollinated the fruits? Has it been a mix of many pollens. They said Shipova is seedless unless it has a pollinator tree. I’m thinking if Shipova is a un-introgressed fresh hybrid, it probably needs both parents pollen mixed-pollinated onto it’s ovary to solve any sterility issues pass F1. This way you the seeds have a better chance of being viable. Is there litterally only one cultivar of Shipova!?
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Often times if seeds did form, they may need to be germianted as soon as possible. Russian Plant Breeder (Who did many Intergenric Hybrids with Rosaceae Fruits) Ivan Michurin suggested germinating seeds as soon as possible from the fruit. Seems it has better chances of growing if sown soon, kind of like an embyro resque technique altho not quite as your still pulling out the seed when the fruit is first ripe.
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Having Shipova Grafted on both Parents rootstock can help form better viable seeds. I bet a Shipova grafted on Pyrus Rootstock pollinates a Shipova grafted on Sorbus rootstock would have better chances than without grafting.
That being said I think combing all 3 methods yields the best chances.
Yes I do and multiple! Now remember theoretically all the species are cross-compatible, so don’t take the phylogenic positions too strictly (As evidence by some Phylogenic Trees drawing diagonal lines to show gene flow between more distant species).
I would love to see you try your ideas for breeding new shipovas. I bet the people who run that website would love to see you try those ideas, too. 
How much longer until you get land to run your experiments on? (Laugh.)
One green world sells regular Shipova, “Baby Shipova” which seems to be a naturally smaller variation, and they also sell a Shipova on a dwarfing rootstock.
Not sure how much genetic variation there is in the Baby Shipova.
Thanks! Im aquiring H. Giganteus x H. Annuus hybrids from GRIN that are apparently are not male sterile. And looking into crossing with with H. Divaricatus to try and introduce better tolerance to full shade and hopefully one day perenniality. I love the idea of a large seeded perennial sunflower.
I want to ask the phylogenic tree plug: Which Brassica species can hybridize and how likely are they to cross if grown together?
@MichaelFomhar 
I’m rooting for your success! Perennial Sunflower seeds For The WIN!!!
@malterod
All of them, they just double the chromosomes!
We actually don’t even know what a Brassica species is in the strict sense cuz some consider Brassica nigra = Mutarda arvensis. And Raphanus should’ve also been a Brassica .
It turns out Radish (Raphanus spp.) were created by crossing ancestors of rapa/oleracea lineage x nigra lineage?
This chart shows you how each Brassica cultivar group was created.
This right here is the classica Brassica Triangle of U. Note Brassica can cross with Raphanus.
Here’s the Updated Version. *Note how many more Genera are possible to cross into the triangle of U. This includes White Mustards (Sinapis spp.), Arugula (Eruca spp.) & possibly the entire Brassiceae Tribe. Yup theoretically all Member of that Tribe have potential to cross.
In fact, anywhere you see chromosome doubling in the Brassiceae Tribe, there could very well be an undiscovered Triangle of U happening in other genera like with the Crambe genus for example.
Here’s the entire Phylogenic Tree for the Brassiceae Tribe.
I’m trying to grow D. nigra, and I had at least one seedling come up (from ordered fruit) in some pretty rough soil but then the rabbits razed it. I had been interested in D. texana because of the drought tolerance and slightly better hardiness so glad to hear someone is playing with them. My bigger D. nigra tree is still in a pot shaded on the porch and still too small for fruits. I’ve been debating trying to get it into the ground since I lost the seedling and in winter our heavy clay floods so wasn’t sure it would like the wet feet. But if I can get a hold of more fruit/seeds that’s one I’d be down to try growing out in my (hopefully soon to be made) air pruning box since I know it’s germinated for me in the past.
I have the same issue with heavy clay and wet winter weather.
I planted four D. texana seeds (each from different sources) in pots in the spring and had zero germination.
I have read they can be very difficult to germinate. I’m just going to let the pots sit through winter and hoping they may pop up next spring.
If you have any other Persimmon Trees in your area, give grafting scion from your D. nigra onto other Persimmons. This way it’s insurance in case your in ground tree fails, the scion lives on a different Diospyros.
They might require more cold stratification. There’s a good chance those seeds if they have germinated are still alive and dormant until the next spring. Many other wild seeds do seedbanking in the soil & just sit there waiting for the right conditions to be created.
I wonder if this explains why they are difficult to germinate? Maybe a combination of factors, what do you think?
I think that is likely the case. I’m not sure if it is specifically cold stratification since their native range is mostly zones 8b-10, but maybe cool/hot cycle.
I’ve read a lot of different ideas and seems like it’s not well enough studied. They do have very hard seed coats so scarification probably would have helped. There may also be some wet/dry cycles required.
We’ll see what happens. The seeds are too hard to find/too expensive to not give them a chance. If they haven’t come up by next summer I’ll dig the pots and see what happened.
Yea, it’s not a hard cold stratification, just probably a longer duration of cool temps. Probably still needs freezing temps days.
Probably, they have to run thru the digestive track usually. Altho enough cold stratification & weathering of the seed could do it, it just means waiting longer & being more patient.
I’ve heard many times & experience this my self, I plant a seed and nothing sprouts this year, then out of the blue when I’ve already completely forgot, it sprouts the next year & I finally remember what I planted. This happend with Cherry Pits & Pawpaws seeds.
If you want faster results, give scarification a try if you think it will help. Alternatively if you remember where you planted them, you can dig it up and seed if you can still find the seed. If you see a little root sprouting Hooray (I’ve done this sometimes )! If not, probably needs longer chill periods or more scarification, or it will just continue to wait until it happens naturally.
Hey, VeggieSavage, I’m putting up your bat signal! 
Have you got a Moraceae philogenetic tree?
I keep wondering if it would be possible to cross che with figs or mulberries or perhaps some other thornless species with tasty fruit, in order to see if I could get weird thornless tasty fruits that incoporate some of that delicious watermelon-with-a-chocolate-center flavor of che.