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Yes I was wondering if hopi white and gray/pale gray were related. This one does say sprawling vines.
According to this video, it would be experimental for cold climates (110 day and likes heat).
Also the seeds he grows came from Squash | Seed Treasures
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A possible other good candidate in the same catalogue but also in this one : Ayerwaddy Delta Winter Squash - High Desert Seed + Gardens. Seems impressive, sold out now.
Those guys did also a video about landrace gardening : https://youtu.be/WcpX7j2WFzE?si=mYYTXsKAaz3kEXNH
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Maybe we should ask the people from Vibrant Earth Seeds if they have observed any of the behavior we’re searching for…
Some shower thoughts:
- Given that the Hopi squash is a drought tolerant variety with desert origins, I wonder if the rerooting behavior was selected for in that environment. I assume it would help with drought.
- I wonder about that thread on Permies where the grower had some success landracing squash. Perhaps part of his success was stumbling upon Maxima squash that reroots? I thought permaculture insect control had failed me, but land racing saved the day! (bugs forum at permies)
Also we’re not the first to think of this strategy:
https://permies.com/t/180899/Creating-Maxima-Squash-Landrace-Vigorous
“I want to select for extreme vigor, where the plant can get going quickly and get big and put down new roots as it spreads out, helping the plant be stronger and less susceptible to squash borers if one area gets damaged.”
Lower in the thread (check it out for photos): “The plant has also been extremely disease and pest resistant, and is amazingly vigorous. It also has no appararant damage from either squash bugs or vine borers. It seems to have the wonderful characteristic of putting down vigorous roots at every node that touches the soil, so I’m sure that helps strengthen the plant and help with its awesome vigor.”
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Also maybe we should ask Joseph about “white Hopi”…
Also, seems like Hopi Pale Grey is different from Hopi White according to anybody want to discuss Hopi squashes? | Homegrown Goodness
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Thinking about the root systems and carotene in the stems is fascinating! The tromboncino squash in my garden looks like it’s thriving even more than it was a couple months ago meanwhile the zucchini and cucumbers and winter squash (maximas and pepos at a friends place)have succumbed to the season..now I am thinking back to past years when I had the space fort big squash patches and though planted the same day I always harvested my butternuts (Early butternut Remix from adaptive seeds) two weeks after all the other squash, and yes indeed some were still alive and pushing… Ill take some pictures of the root systems and cross section of the tromboncino stem when i take it out!!
I imagine these impressive root systems would be more drought and disease tolerant, something very worth selecting, I will pay attention to this in future squash plots, and really it just opens up my mind too a whole other selection criteria, especially carotene, I can only imagine that would directly correlate to higher levels in the fruit as well! FUN!
Also your squash harvest is just stunning!!
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Thanks Taja, that is very encouraging! Glad you catched up with that surprising observation! I’ve marked the fruit whose stem had that criteria so that will let us know in a couple months if that is correlated to carotene in the fruit, storage capacity, overall great taste, etc.
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Yes, that’s really interesting indeed. Seems like rerooting is very relative not only to the variety or landrace but also to the fertility of the ground. Makes sense it’s always a sign of good health. I’ve just reached out to the owner of Seed Dreams (Tessa Gowans) to see if she still sell seeds, which is quite possible as she sells mostly locally. I’ve asked her also for Lower Salmon River and Sweet Meat (Oregon Homestead) of Carol Deppe : 2 other maximas she is offering and which have also astounding reviews relatively to vigor.
Also, I’ve discovered this website : http://clara.vrx.palo-alto.ca.us/, and even if partially outdated and with quite a few broken links, it contains very valuable informations - not specific to roots though!
Thanks Patate 
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I’ve grown oregon homestead sweet meat before (I’m pretty sure the seed is easy to find if Seed Dreams doesn’t work out).
Right now I have in my mix Desert Spirit Culinary Landrace’ Squash, which has Oregon Homestead in it’s ancestry. 'Desert Spirit Culinary Landrace' Squash – Experimental Farm Network Seed Store
I’ll have to pay more attention to roots!
Also, I think it’s possible to use some proxy attributes to detect rerooting. E.g. sprawling behavior, ability to survive squash bugs, drought resistance… Mentioning this because not many seed catalogs and growers will talk about roots.
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Exactly! I looked for “vigor” in catalogue as main proxy… we’ll see how it goes
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I’ve just been following this convo peripherally but wanted to simply add the Desert Spirit mix is quite robust and fun. Grew it out last year alongside a Buttercup grex and got some very fun pig planted specimens this year (didn’t intentionally plant maxima this season) I likely only watered a handful of times.
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Definitely a winner, with lots of diversity.
Thanks for those interesting observations Joseph! At my place this year I grew a whole row of 16 plants of these and they did worse than my squashes that themselves did poorly! They did up to a fruit per plant, small (1.5-2lbs, 1-1.5kgs), and in a couple of plants none, when my plants most did mostly just one 2-5lbs fruit, some 2 fruit. That is still a very poor harvest, probably already more adapted to my soil conditions.
Anyway now they are interbred in my mix and… I’ll sew how they taste in a couple weeks from now!
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Seed Dreams is still selling seeds, I’ve just had confirmation by owner via e-mail.
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