I’m making a few intentional crosses between my pepos this year and was curious if choosing the “mother/female” plant a specific way matters? For example, let’s say I was crossing a patty pan squash with a dark star zucchini. Would selecting the patty pan’s female flowers each time make a difference vs selecting the dark star’s female flowers?
Genetically there are (or can be) some differences, but whether those are something you should pay attention to, is another matter. There are, however, some more practical considerations. Like which is likely to make more seeds. You don’t need that many F1s seeds just for yourself to get a sufficient amount of F2s, but still having a variety that tends to make more is better. Last year I had one that had a single viable seed and others that had under 10. Not ideal. Can’t say it was certainly variety related, but it’s likely that there are significant differences between varieties. Another more obvious reason that comes to mind is using first to have female flowers as female a parent to have the most time for seeds to ripen. This might be more relevant for the north, but don’t see why it wouldn’t be useful in the deep south as well if heat comes too much for the plants to develop seeds properly. The advice I would give is just to make as many crosses as you can while you can. There is no saying that those you make take and there might be some later problems that terminate the growth before maturity.
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The choice of which plant to use as female generally doesn’t matter, but it might. For example, I grew a variety of corn with extra dark green leaves. The green color is associated with chlorophyll which is in the chloroplasts, which get inherited only from the mother. I used the dark green plant as female, just in case that was a maternal only trait.
I make an F1 hybrid with corn, in which I use old-fashioned sweet corn as the female, because of the super strong seed coat, a maternal only trait, and it leads to super reliable germination. If I use sugary enhanced corn as the female, then the fragile seed coat may lead to failed germination.
The time from flower to mature fruit in tomato can vary between 6 to 9 weeks. In my short season, choosing the quicker maturing parent as mother can make a big difference.
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Hey Joseph! That example makes a lot of sense. I’ll have to do more digging into possible maternal only traits in pepos. It should make a good rabbit hole to dive down into. Thanks for the reply!
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Hey Jesse, thanks for the reply and all the info! The heat is definitely a factor here and something to consider.