It was dry enough to mulch rest of the paths. Still muddy at spots, but should dry up fast with this weather and the way plants are growing. This week had rain forecast couple of days ago, but now those are all but gone from the maps and temp forecast went up 5C/9F with highs getting close to 30C/86F again. No cool weather in forecast, but might be getting to more seasonal temperatures by the end of this week. Or not. It has been pushed back already in few forecasts.
At least some of the moschata have very interesting and useful trait. They have first females just few leafnodes into the vine and 2 in a row with 3rd little further and 4th in second vine. Vine is also more compact so possibly little bushy growth. Another also has 2 females right close to the plant, but just more vining growth habbit. Usually the first females come much futher down the vine. They also look like they will open soon which probably is record early or close to it with direct sowing this way. I didn’t check if they even have males ready to open. Would be a new problem as usually they flower a week before first females. There is still some 2 weeks of good time to start developing fruits to have them ripe enough with high certainty so looks really good.
Interesting early moschatas! Just for you to see and then to let me know if you’re interested because I could ask friends for some to send you:
this trait you’ll see under is incredible:
In Nice region (south east France) they grow 2 kinds of “Longue de Nice”: the mostly known outside of Nice is a kind of basic, but super long, winter storage moschata… But the real local selection is all around this second type: around what they call “courgette”, i.e. “zucchini” in most places, but of a crazily surprising type, and use: they harvest the “courgette” BEFORE it flowers and sell them on the market, with the flower attached. I saw a fields last october where they were harvesting 80kgs daily on a 1000m2 plot.
How in the world? They just selected generation after generation around:
short internodes…
-… with female flower at each node or nearly, and frequently 2 (friends told me that they had already seen triple female flowers!). They even had to selection against that at some point as they were lacking male flowers to have some fruits pollinated for their annual selection!..
As it’s not been selected for storage and good taste when mature it may not be super interesting just the way it is but surely it could be an amazing trait to introvert - even partially - into a landrace for short seasons!
Yes it’s definetely interesting. Mature taste can’t be too bad no can it? Would be interesting to get some evaluation of that. The real question is how tolerant of cold they are? Do I need to be prepared to baby them to make a cross?
Those are quite big at flower stage so they must be quite big as mature fruits. That’s not as good a trait for me.
I could ask for taste of those “courgette type” they select for their next generation, will let you know. I can’t tell if they differ that much from others.
The reply to your question about cold tolerance of those may find an answer with @malterod in Denmark as I sent him some of those seeds. Nice is VERY hot, probably one of the hottest place in France, South Italy like or so.
Eventually: yes you are right that the “winter type” strain makes literally huge fruits: up to one meter, frequently cut on market gardeners stands for sellings. Nevertheless those “winter type” are selecting for having less fruits so I really can’t tell how such a “courgette” type would behave carying many fruits: I’m kind of sure they would be shortened a lot. Again Malte maybe could provide us some clues.
I’m growing some of your seed @ThomasPicard this year, but it is still too early to say how they will turn out. I’m crossing my fingers. Of the Cucurbits I grow, I expect them to be the hardest to grow because all the genetics come from southern types. I don’t know anyone growing these long-necked mochatas in more Northern climates. The mix I’m growing probably the most Northern seed is Centercut Squash, which Row 7 grows in New York State.
After having some varieties die/not do very well even with protection I’m a bit wary trying stable(ish) varieties. Although location might not always tell about it’s cold tolerance or the cold tolerance might actually be tolerance to other factors. Still more certain would be through cross with something more tolerant and unstable so that there are more changes to work.
Those might still be huge and only start to develop few fruits after pollination. What I also started to wonder is how long they take to grow those flowers to full size. I would expect growth to be fastest after pollination and so smaller flowers might be better to get that pollination early to get fast development. I only need something that has many females as soon as possible so those plants that I have might have all I need. Still those look interesting and might have some use.
First female flower in luffas, but no males yet. They look to be almost ready with several more females. This one wasn’t in the best transplants. They suffered heavily from transplant shock and conditions after that. If I use transplants next year I know now better how to time it. Might not need to use them thought. Direct seeded aren’t that much behind and with the plastic it’s possible to sow them earlier. They did suffer a bit similarly to transplants what looks like might have been caused by saturated ground and temperature variations from low to high. They did recover fast and best have grown 1,5m in the last 2 weeks since heatwave started and has reached the top of the trellis. Flowers are still small and might be late from ideal, but at least it’s interesting to see how they grow and how things might change once eventually temperatures drop.
Had the fist male flower in moschatas open only now. Not especially unusual timing as on “normal” plants the females are just starting to develop, but it feels like wasted time now when there has been so many fameles open. There was also one open in another of the best plants so I pollinated it and now I’ll have a super strain? There was also one smaller male flower on another plant, but that didn’t seem to have much pollen. What was interesting was that it was one of the plants that had early females and there males were first. It was just generally more slower. Maybe it has both traits or it might be as so often is the case that stress has caused early male flowering. Still it has early female flowers so it’s worth seeing what it might bring.
It seems like early female flowering is even more advantageous than i initially thought. On “normal” strong plants females seem to be around 2 weeks later than in the first early female flowering. With that trait growing moschatas in very short cool(ish) season might change from challenging to easy.
First female flower in maximas opened a couple of days ago and I promptly pollinated it with all of the other plants that had flowers. They are seeds from last years survivor plot. They seemed to be little slower than I thought, also compared to moschatas and I’m wondering if the seeds were affected by late ripening period and stressful conditions. The seedlings seemed a bit weaker, but once they got going it has looked normal. Growing out these for seed in more normal growing conditions should avoid that problem and have fully vigorous seeds next year.
Already thinking of something similar, but instead of making some early I plan to sow main patch without any protection to slow them down enough that a patch sown like this year (possibly with extended clothed period) has time to start flowering. I still want to favour hard selection pressure and there isn’t really need to get them set fruits any earlier than this.
Some of the c.preatermissum x c.baccatum crosses have inherited purple/pink coloured flowers from praetermissum. Some also have more bell shaped flowers. Those traits are more prominent in the half/half F2s. Back crosses, as could be expected, have more baccatum traits in flowers. First signs of fruits look also more domestic sized. Grow out itself didn’t go to plan. Cool early summer was too much for the transplants in pots like I have had them last couple of years. Might have been better to transplant and cover with cloth so that roots remain at least little warmer, but that I had not planned for and changing it on the go wasn’t that easy. I got them in the ground late in mid june and covered with cloth little later. They did take off quite fast after that. I didn’t look under the cloth when deluge was going on and it was a little surprise how well they had started once I did. Ofcourse there were some casualties, but enough had started flowering and had first fruits early enough to make seeds so I should get a seed increase with some selection. I was planning on playing bumble bee and going from flower to flower to increase variance, but that went past during deluge when I didn’t want to start and play with cloths. Maybe next year. Playing bumble bee, not play with cloths.
First silks came on 1.8 and now there are a few more. Quite big differences as there was with parent varieties. Might be a little harder selection. Even the ones that are now silking should give a lot of seeds and they already have wide range of expression. There are some that I’m still hoping to start silking. Mostly those that have strong air roots with mucus and those plants that didn’t have tillers. Air roots are only just starting to grow and they have grown quite a bit even compared to pictures that were taken a few days ago. Two plants have interesting sideways growing air roots. Longest must be already going 20cm horizontally. Some eventually go to the ground, but remains to be seen what they look like in a month if they keep on growing like this. I don’t know if the trait itself is useful and if there is going to be more mucus in those long ones. Have to wait and see.
Almost missed first male flowers in luffas yesterday, but this time no females. Not today either, but might be tomorrow. It would be nice to get at least some growing when there is still likely to be a few weeks warm(ish) or even hot weather.
I grow a courgette mix of Tromboncino/Trombetta d’Albenga and its little sister Trompette de Nice (not sure which strain it is). (UK)
Some of them are bright green like on your photo and the plants are super vigourous and productive. I find they are not as good eating, more coarse and watery than the lighter ones (I’m very picky though, I grew up eating them).
They all produce female flowers earlier than butternuts & co (this year was about 2 weeks earlier).
Jesse, mature flesh is more coarse/stringy and watery than butternut but the vigour and earliness is probably worth working on. I’ve done a similar project with my butternut mix, using Tahiti melon as the super vigourous mothers (but also turned out watery, stringy and way too big in my climate). The following year, I grew the F1 and any butternuts that made mature fruits (not many) and a patch of butternuts to use as the male flowers again (kind of back-cross?). I didn’t have any giants and the flesh was better. Growing the next generation this year, Got 4 fruits already (from direct seeding in May).
Thanks for the info. Taste isn’t that big of a issue as moschatas often here don’t ripen and I use them anyway. Also had one nepalise that made very bland white flesh. Right now it’s more about pushing the limits, which might be problem when trying to add southern varieties. After this yeart I’m starting to think more that I should stick to those that are way faster than others as often even better growers are just too slow. I just had the first of those with “normal” female flowering open it’s first female flower and it’s getting too late already. Many more southern varieties have died early in the season and I don’t want to waste space for nothing. Better if I can get crosses from someone else, preferably with something that has survived my climate before.
How were those in terms of producing mature fruits? Many fruits or did they make just few. Mine have few fruits and mostly look like they have stopped making females and some don’t seem to grow that much. Might be that they are too tight, althought some are still growing well.
Had first ripe fruits from ground cherries only 1 month from flowering. Fruits are smaller and it seems like it’s at least partially stress related ripening. Generally I expect them to ripen about 1,5 months from flower. So far there aren’t too many visible differences between plants. There might be one that is more compact, but that being one the ones that ripened fruits it might be just stress related. One thing I learned to look for after watching an youtube lecture about ground cherry breeding is amount of petals on flowers. Usually they have 5 and more means that the fruits are on average bigger. Found one that had single flower with 6 petals, but otherwise it looked mostly normal. Have to keep eye out for it especially early in the season when I still can make last cullings based on that.
Corn looks like it it will be some kind of a success. Certainly there is variance and I have culled some late that weren’t going to make even cobs to eat. Best looks to be those “sweet kernels” from grain corn. I have tagged the ones that started making cobs fairly early and have marked/will mark there different traits; date of silking, air roots, hight, amount of cobs, tillers, sweetness etc. I want them to have air roots, not to have tillers and aiming for 3 or more cobs (although at the moment 2 is fine). Hight isn’t that big of a issue as long as they are early enough. Many already at least try to make 3 cobs and one has 4 silks, but remains to be seen if they develop. 3 I have had often in grain corn, but only once in sweet corns. Couple had variegated leaves on cobs, but only after first cob. Not sure why is that and if it’s stress related.
After early season failures with corn and with space that opened up after watermalons failed I made a little germination/late growing test with yukon gold last days of june. About 50% of seeds germinated in germination box, but after sowing only 50% emerged so only 25% success rate. Better than the ones I sowed earlier, but still quite poor and I don’t know why. Anyway they have grown just about as expected. First started silking 10.8 and rest a little later. Because first started silking before it had pollen I pollinated it with some of the others and now I’m thinking if I should try to protect them to give them a better change to ripen seeds. I do have several yukon gold that I sowed earlier in mid june with the others that were also pollinated with the others, but more seeds would be better.
Had the earliest frost on this place last week. Based on statistics it’s really unusual. Current closest station had it’s 4 lowest august ground level temperatures ever 4 days in a row, although that only has measurments from august since 2019. The temperatures there were between 0.6-1.5C, but on my plot it must have gone little lower at spots. Even before 2019 from the old station coldest after 2007 (to 2018) is -0.2 and that station was generally 1-2C colder at ground level than current station so this might have been colder than then. There aren’t statistics from ground level before that, but it seems there has been some even worse years. Overall the risk seems quite small when even this didn’t cause any widespread damage that would bother (unlike on survivor plot). Some tomatoes suffered greatly, but it seems to be because they were small and skinny still. Taller and more lush seemed to survive better, most likely because the foliage blocks heat loss from the ground and higher plants aren’t where it’s coldest. As it was just barely below, the frost was only at ground level. Because of this everything else escaped dameges besides some melons and kiwanos. Even those had very limited damages. Cold in general can get too much for them, but so far they have fared surprisingly well, most likely thanks to how dry it has been. That might change, but also temperatures are getting closser to mild summer temperatures late this week for a bit yet.
Some tomatoes had dropped fruits, but those plants weren’t affected by frost and this happened just for general cold shock. It has happened before and isn’t nothing new to me. They volunteered themselves out of the gene pool and seed saving.
